If they only knew. Bullying victimization among children and youth in the Nordic countries

Bullying is a social and public health problem recognized across the globe. The aim with this thesis is to describe and understand bullying victimization of children and youth in a social-ecological perspective with the focus on prevalence, mental health, social relations and disclosing bullying victimization. This thesis includes four studies based on three different data sources: the parent-reported Nordic Study of Children’s Health and Wellbeing (NordChild, Studies I-II), interviews with Swedish youth (Study III) and the child-reported Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey (HBSC, Study IV). As well as descriptive statistics, the data from NordChild was analysed with logistic regression (Studies I, II) and the HBCS data was analysed in a multi-level logistic regression. The interview study was based on grounded theory, analysed by two-step coding. The results of this thesis showed that parent-reported bullying victimization had decreased from 1996 (21.7 percent) to 2011 (19.2 percent) in the combined Nordic countries, but immigrant children were bullied more often than native children. Between 29.2–44.3 percent of the bullied children had mental health problems, varying between age and gender. A protective factor that gave higher odds of bullied children being mentally healthy was having several close friends. Not all parents knew whether their child was being bullied, and children with unclear status regarding whether they were being bullied had higher levels of mental health problems than non-victims. When bullied children disclosed victimization it was not simply a matter of telling or not telling, it was a circular process in transition between hidden and open victimization. Victims withheld disclosure of victimization for reasons associated with personal identity and/or reasons originating in distrust of adults. Bullied children, especially frequent victims, had higher odds of having poor relations with their parents and teachers than non-victims. The social-ecological perspective is used to understand the interplay between individual factors and the social context where the bullying exists. The results from the four studies is understood at different system levels; in the interaction with and between peers, family and school, and in interplay with norms and attitudes about victimization and bullying in the broader society

Bullied Online but Not Telling Anyone : What Are the Reasons for Not Disclosing Cybervictimization?

Although telling an adult can be effective at ending bullying, not all bullied children tell someone about their victimization. The aim of the current study was to examine: 1) if being bullied online and not telling anyone was associated with the perceived intensity and harm experienced from being bullied, 2) the reasons for not telling anyone, and 3) if these reasons were related to the level of harm experienced from being bullied. The data used in this study consisted of responses from 451 Czech adolescents aged 12–18 who had been cyberbullied. The results showed that more boys (47%) than girls (19%) did not tell anyone about being bullied online. There was an association between experienced harm and cybervictimization disclosure; 42% of adolescents with little experience of harm did not tell anyone about it, which was more often than the case for those adolescents with a medium level of harm (19%), and those with intense harm (19%). The reasons for not telling differed among groups, where intensely harmed adolescents more often reported that they did not trust anyone and were afraid of making the situation worse and respondents with medium harm reported to a greater extent not having anyone who could help them. The most common answer for adolescents with a low experience of harm was that they did not tell anyone because they thought they would manage on their own (54%)

Bullied online but not telling anyone : what are the reasons for not disclosing cybervictimization?

Although telling an adult can be effective at ending bullying, not all bullied children tell someone about their victimization. The aim of the current study was to examine: 1) if being bullied online and not telling anyone was associated with the perceived intensity and harm experienced from being bullied, 2) the reasons for not telling anyone, and 3) if these reasons were related to the level of harm experienced from being bullied. The data used in this study consisted of responses from 451 Czech adolescents aged 12–18 who had been cyberbullied. The results showed that more boys (47%) than girls (19%) did not tell anyone about being bullied online. There was an association between experienced harm and cybervictimization disclosure; 42% of adolescents with little experience of harm did not tell anyone about it, which was more often than the case for those adolescents with a medium level of harm (19%), and those with intense harm (19%). The reasons for not telling differed among groups, where intensely harmed adolescents more often reported that they did not trust anyone and were afraid of making the situation worse and respondents with medium harm reported to a greater extent not having anyone who could help them. The most common answer for adolescents with a low experience of harm was that they did not tell anyone because they thought they would manage on their own (54%)

Hästtjejer - en studie om stallet som identitetsutvecklande arena.

Ridning är Sveriges näst största sport, bara fotbollen är större. För många tjejer är stallet mer än en plats där själva sporten utövas. Stallet blir till en slags fritidsgård där nästan all ledig tid spenderas, även om själva ridaktiviteten ibland utförs endast en gång per vecka. Vad stallvistelsen betyder för tjejernas identitetsutveckling vet vi inte särskilt mycket om. Syftet med undersökningen är att ta reda på hur tiden i stallet påverkar tjejerna i deras identitetsutveckling. Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ metod. Empirin består av 10 halvstrukturerade intervjuer med tjejer som är i stallet minst tre gånger i veckan, och är 15-17 år gamla. Teoriansatsen har i huvudsak ett salutogenetiskt synsätt, vilket kompletteras med teorier rörande identitet, genus och makt (empowerment). Huvudresultatet av studien visar att tjejerna som deltog i undersökningen överlag har en hög känsla av sammanhang. Stallet är en arena där gemenskapen och hästen står i fokus. Tjejerna är medvetna om hur de ska göra för att påverka ridklubben, och gör det också i hög grad. Hästar som intresse tar mycket tid, och flera av informanterna är ambivalenta till hur hästintresset ska prioriteras i framtiden. I stallet får utseende stå tillbaka för andra egenskaper. Här blir inte tjejerna studerade, eller studerar varandra, efter kläder, smink, frisyr, smycken, figur och ”kvinnligt” agerande. Paradoxalt nog värdesätts snara-re typiskt ”manligt” agerande, dvs. aktivitet istället för passivitet. Killarna nedvärderar ridning och hästar som sport, i ett försök att reglera tjejerna till ett önskvärt feminint beteende, där tjejerna är mindre självständiga och mer observatörer till killarnas aktivi-teter. Slutsatsen är att försöken misslyckas, och gruppen ”hästtjejer” skapar istället en egen identitet. Jag benämner den som stallidentitet. En positiv identitetsutveckling står då som motvikt till den negativa identitet killar försöker att ge hästtjejerna

Vikten av vikten - en studie av gymnasieungdomars syn på förhållandet mellan ätstörning, normalitet och den ideala kroppen

The human body has more meaning than a physical part, both in action and mind. Many differentiated and contradictory feelings can be associated with the body; joy, pride and attraction, but also repulsion, disgust and despise. The main objective of this paper is to see how the relationship between eating disorder, normality and the ideal body is perceived by high school youth, and what meaning this perceiving has to them. The conception, and worrying about the body has for long been looked at as a “woman’s issue” and therefore much of the research about the subject has included only women because the issues not have been considered relevant to men (Striegel-Moore and Franko 2002). To create wide and depth in the paper, methodological triangulation with both quantitative and qualitative methods is used. The quantitative method is based on a questionnaire distributed to 176 high school youth. The qualitative method consists of nine semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework is based mainly on a social constructionists’ perspective, but is completed of other theories and concepts such as symbolic interactionism, normality, identity and gender. The main conclusion is that appearance has great importance for the youth who participated in the study. One who gains a lot of weight risk to be left by his or hers friends, and one who starts as ugly from the beginning does rarely get a fair chance of a friendship with the more attractive peers. Appearance is shown to matter a lot for both sexes, but since the body ideal for girls is a lot narrower than for boys, the girls' efforts are more likely to lead to destructive ways of action. Boys on the other hand, can choose between several body ideals. In the long run it leads to that boys often feel more at ease with their bodies, and have more healthy ways of actions to form their body. More than every fourth girl being part of the study has one time or more thrown up the food she just ate in pursuit of the ideal body. The corresponding number for boys is significantly lower. The concepts eating disorder, normality and the ideal body have a close relationship. The ideal body is in the center, but none of the concepts can be defined without the others, because without the disturbed or the normal body there would not be any ideal body to strive for

The challenging process of disclosing bullying victimization: A grounded theory study from the victim’s point of view

School children are usually encouraged to tell an adult whether they are being bullied. Despite this encouragement, a significant percentage of bullied students do not disclose victimization. Previous research has often failed to include this group of hidden victims, thereby limiting the available knowledge about victimization disclosure. This study aimed to investigate the process of disclosing bullying victimization from the victim’s point of view. Interviews with Swedish youth who had been or currently were victims of bullying in school were carried out and analyzed with grounded theory methods using two-step coding. </jats:p

A typology of fashion violence

In the study of fashion there is a temptation to privilege the experience of seduction, glamour and empowerment of individuals, or the representation of cultural values through dress. But fashion also has a propensity for narcissism (self-satisfaction) and the potential for this self-satisfaction to be achieved through the harassment and degradation of others. In this article, fashion is examined as an everyday site for establishing social distinctions, where violence in the form of microaggressions and bullying is masked by the apparent superficially and innocuousness of clothing. The aim is to demonstrate how fashion is implicated in the three levels of everyday violence identified by Galtung (1990) in his typography of violence. The article takes examples from the cultural realm of fashion and a set of interviews with young people who experienced bullying because of their clothes. The examples are applied to Galtung's model to produce a typology of fashion violence