In my last post, I discussed the differences between migrants and native students in their level of experiencing bullying at school (PISA 2022 index of being bullied at school). Coincidentally, a discussion on the same topic emerged in a Serbian parents’ chat—a space created by Russian parents to discuss school-related issues in Serbia. Some children who have moved from Russia (and likely from other countries as well) face bullying in Serbian schools, but sometimes it is unclear whether certain behaviors qualify as bullying or are simply different cultural norms of behaviour.
For example, one mother shared that in Serbia, it is common for someone to walk up, take another person’s Coca-Cola bottle, and drink from it. Serbians do not perceive this as bullying, whereas for many Russian schoolchildren, this would seem strange and unacceptable. This highlights how behaviors that are considered bullying in one culture may be seen as normal social interaction in another. Moreover, if a behavior is not perceived as problematic within a particular culture, children may not even register that something unusual is happening to them.
Take another example: someone grabs a student’s backpack and throws it. In some cultures, this would be considered an aggressive act. But in Serbia? Possibly not.
I think, that cultural differences in perception might partly explain variations in the reported bullying index between immigrant and native students. On one hand, migrants might genuinely experience bullying more frequently. On the other hand, they may simply interpret certain interactions—such as a pat on the shoulder or a flick on the forehead—as hostile, while local students see them as normal behavior.
Curious about this, I decided to dive deeper into the available data—not just looking at overall bullying indices but also analyzing specific survey questions to see how response patterns differ across countries. Of course, this data alone cannot tell us how children from different cultural backgrounds interpret the same behaviors, but it does offer some insights.
How Often Do Students Report Bullying?
One survey asked students how frequently they had encountered bullying in the past 12 months. The findings reveal two key points:
Across all questions, the majority of students reported that they had not experienced bullying in the past year.
Even among those who did report bullying, most selected "A few times a year" rather than "A few times a month" or "Once a week or more."
To simplify the interpretation, I grouped all responses except "Never" into a single category. The table below shows the percentage of children in each country who experienced some form of bullying at least once in the past year.
Table 1: Percentage of Students Who Experienced Bullying at Least Once in the Past Year
The data reveals that the most commonly reported forms of bullying include:
"Other students made fun of me."
"Other students spread nasty rumors about me."
"Other students left me out of things on purpose."
If we exclude these three most frequent types, we can observe some interesting cross-country differences:
Threats are reported more often in the Great Britain and Montenegro than in other countries.
Manipulation of belongings is slightly more common among students in Austria, the Great Britain, and Slovenia.
Physical aggression is more frequently reported in the GB and Slovenia.
Fights are more commonly mentioned by students in Greece and France.
Students in Italy are more likely to stay home due to safety concerns.
Interestingly, as the table shows, students from the three Balkan countries do not report bullying more frequently than students elsewhere. In fact, they report it rather infrequently. However, as I mentioned earlier, this could be due to cultural differences in how behaviors are perceived. It is also possible that some students are more hesitant to admit that they have been targeted by certain actions.
Bullying vs. Witnessing Aggressive Behavior
The situation looks different when we shift our focus from direct experiences of bullying to witnessing aggressive behavior in school. Here, the picture is far less reassuring.
The table below shows the percentage of students who reported witnessing the following events in the past four weeks:
Vandalism in school
A fight on school property
Gangs in school
A student threatening to harm another student
A student carrying a weapon (gun or knife) at school
Table 2: Percentage of Students Who Witnessed Aggressive Behavior in the Past Four Weeks
From this data, we see that:
More than a third of students in Greece and the UK witnessed vandalism at school.
20% of students in Montenegro reported seeing gangs at school.
More than 10% of students in Austria, France, Greece, and Montenegro reported seeing weapons or knives at school.
More than 20% of students in the UK, Greece, and Montenegro heard a student threaten to hurt another student.
Final Thoughts: The Need for Deeper Research
This data does not answer the question of cross-cultural differences in bullying perception, nor does it clarify whether immigrants truly experience more bullying or if they are simply more likely to recognize and report certain behaviors. To answer these questions, we need in-depth qualitative research that examines how children from different cultures interpret the same interactions.
Perhaps this topic will spark interest among researchers in the Balkans—there is certainly more to explore!
Comments