The social and emotional skills of bullies, victims, and bully–victims of Egyptian primary school children

This study examined whether bullies, victims, bully–victims (who are both bullies and victims), and students who reported no or low levels of bullying and victimization differed in their levels of social and emotional skills. Data were collected from 623 children in fifth and sixth grades from four Egyptian elementary schools; their ages ranged from 10 to 12 years. K‐means cluster analysis revealed four groups: bullies ( n  = 138), victims ( n  = 178), bully–victims ( n  = 59), and children who were not involved in bullying behaviour ( n  = 248). Data were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. The findings indicated that boys were more involved in bullying behaviour than girls, and both bullies and bully–victims were less likely to adhere to social rules and politeness than children who were not involved in bullying. Both bullies and victims were less aware of the physiological reactions of their emotions than uninvolved children, and were less able to apply social rules in social interaction. Both victims and bully–victims reported less likeability than children not involved in bullying. Verbal sharing, attending to others’ emotions, and analysis of emotions did not have a statistically significant relationship with the probabilities of classifying children to any bullying group versus children not involved in bullying. Social skills were more important than emotional awareness in predicting the likelihood of classifying children in one of the three bullying groups versus children who not involved in bullying. The main conclusion is that social and emotional skills together may provide an effective means of intervention for bullying problems.