The Associations between Anti-Bullying Interventions and Bullying and Cyberbullying Rates in Albanian Schools

Abstract

AbstractTo tackle school bullying, teachers can implement school, class, parent, or individual level activities. Applying a socio-ecological model of development, the present study (1) investigates which prevention and intervention activities are implemented in Albanian schools according to teacher perspectives, and (2) examines how these teacher-reported activities are associated with bullying and cyberbullying rates reported both by teachers and students. Representative data in schools all over Albania were collected via a stratified sampling procedure to select schools and a random sample method to select teachers and students. In total, 144 schools serving grades 4 to 12 and 3560 teachers (81% female) and 2377 students (54% girls) participated. The teachers indicated which school, class, parent, or individual level activities have been implemented in their school by answering a 14-item self-report. Both teachers and students reported the bullying and cyberbullying rates in their schools by answering an Olweus-type questionnaire. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel structural equation modeling on school level was applied to answer the research questions. Remarkably, the teacher and student perspectives regarding bullying and cyberbullying rates were not significantly correlated. Higher bullying and cyberbullying rates reported by teachers were significantly associated with higher levels of individual level activities, but with lower levels of class level activities. There were no associations between teacher reported intervention strategies and student reported bullying and cyberbullying rates. The study has major implications for the anti-bullying work in Albanian schools.