Premium
Bullying and repeated conventional transgressions in Swedish schools: How do gender and bullying roles affect students’ conceptions?
Author(s) -
Thornberg Robert,
Pozzoli Tiziana,
Gini Gianluca,
Hong Jun Sung
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/pits.22054
Subject(s) - psychology , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , perspective (graphical) , developmental psychology , moral development , communication , artificial intelligence , computer science
Bullying is a moral transgression. Recognizing the importance of approaching bullying from a moral perspective, the present study examines whether children's judgments and reasoning to justify their judgments differ between bullying and repeated conventional transgressions. Our study also explores differences by gender and differences among bullies, victims, and uninvolved students. Participants included 381 students from 13 elementary schools in Sweden. Findings indicate that children judge bullying as more wrong than repeated conventional transgressions; use moral reasons more frequently in their justifications about bullying than about repeated conventional transgressions; and use conventional reasons more frequently to justify their judgments on repeated conventional transgressions as compared with bullying. Female students and nonbullies judged bullying and repeated conventional transgressions as more wrong and used moral reasons more frequently in their justifications of judgments of bullying than did male students and bullies. Male students reported bullying more than did female students. Implications for practice are also discussed.