Author Description

Bullying has devastating consequences. Because of the magnitude of the aftermaths, bullying has been investigated by scholars around the world. Prior studies, however, contains several limitations and this study is designed to address those shortcomings. This study applies ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) as a theoretical framework to identify different levels of factors influencing bullying behavior in schools. This study also develops four measures of peer influence relevant to bullying behavior, and improves the definition of bullying and its measures by including severity, duration, and visibility dimensions of bullying. Using a multiple cluster sampling method, the author randomly selected 36 classes from 6 different areas of South Korea. Data were collected from 1,238 middle school students in those selected classes in 2007. Findings suggest all of the ecological systems as well as individual traits were found to be statistically significant influences on bullying either directly or indirectly. The results from this study should be useful to school authorities as well as anyone who may be interested in testing bullying behavior.