Are bully-victims homogeneous? Latent class analysis on school bullying

Abstract

This study aimed to identify subgroups based on student's verbal, social, and physical bullying and victimization behaviors using latent class analysis (LCA). The dataset used in this research consists of 3581 8th graders as participants from the 2014 5th annual survey of Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (SELS) in Korea. Broadly speaking, our analysis identified six subgroups: 31.9% of uninvolved, 7.1% of victims, 10.1% of bullies, 37.8% of bully-victims who showed high levels of verbal bullying victimization and perpetration (BV-V), 9.0% of bully-victims who showed high levels of verbal and social bullying victimization and perpetration (BV-VS), and, 4.1% of bully-victims who showed high levels of verbal, social, and physical bullying victimization and perpetration (BV-VSP). Our results indicate that the bully-victim group may not be homogeneous, but rather can be further identified and divided into three characteristic subgroups. Using the identified subgroups, more effective intervention could be made by clarifying the targeted group of students.