Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimization Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to use meta-analysis to assess the rates of bullying victimization in the United States (US) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a systematic search of academic databases and a previous meta-analysis database, we collected studies published between 1995 and 2023. Included studies used US-based data and reported on bullying involvement rates among children/adolescents across at least two data points (years), where 1 year had to be from 2020 to 2023. Data were extracted by type of bullying, gender, race, grade level, as well as numerous study-level features. Analyses included random effects meta-analyses, meta-regressions, and moderator analysis. Findings across the 79 studies and 19,033 effect sizes indicate that reported rates of traditional bullying victimization were significantly lower during the COVID pandemic years of 2020 to 2022 compared to the pre-pandemic years (23% vs 19%). This pattern was reflected across gender, grade, and most racial/ethnic groups examined. Overall, rates of cyberbullying victimization remained similar pre-pandemic vs during COVID (16% vs 17%). However, for boys, American Indian/Alaska Native youth, Asian, multi-racial, and White youth rates of cyberbullying victimization were significantly higher during COVID compared to the pre-pandemic period, while rates were significantly lower for transgender/non-binary youth during COVID (39% vs 25%). In addition, we conducted a moderator analysis and used meta-analysis to calculate pooled rates by year. Findings inform the current state of bullying involvement in the US and have implications for school-based bullying prevention practices and policies.