Abstract
School violence is a global concern that calls for international research using cross context methods. Although there are several international surveys that compare school violence across countries, they do not clearly address issues of similarities and differences in relative prevalence of different types of victimization and their relations with age, sex, and cultural group. We explored these questions among Israeli-Arab (n = 13,606), Israeli-Jewish (n = 10,637), and Chilean students in poor schools in a large Chilean city (n = 4557), using the same self-report questionnaire that measures verbal-social victimization, victimization by threats, physical victimization, and sexual harassment. As hypothesized, we found similarities in the patterns of relative prevalence of victimization types, as well as study group, sex, and age main effects and interactions. These effects were evident even when the lowest third SES group in Israel was compared with the Chilean students. These findings suggest group differences in prevalence of student victimization, and at the same time cultural invariance in relative prevalence of victimization types and their relations with sex and age. We discuss the need for more international comparative research in this field that takes into account cultural values and the structure and organizations of schools within the different educational systems.
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Acknowledgements
This study was funded by FONDECYT 1140960, FONDEF IT1410132, and PIA-CONICYT Project CIE160009.
Author Contributions
V.L. designed and was in charge of the study in Chile, assisted with the data analyses, and participated in writing the introduction, methods, and discussion of the paper. R.B. collaborated with the design, supervised the secondary data analyses in Israel, and participated in writing the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections. R.A. participated in developing the conceptual framework of the study and the discussion, and participated in writing the introduction and discussion sections. M.B. collaborated with the design of the Chilean study and participated in writing the findings and discussion. P.A. collaborated with the design of the Chilean study and final editing of the manuscript. C.C. collaborated with the design of the Chilean study and interpretation of findings. T.R. conducted data analyses and collaborated in interpretation of findings. I.R. was in charge of preparing the data sets for analyses, conceptualized and oversaw the statistical analyses and participated in interpretation of the findings.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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López, V., Benbenishty, R., Astor, R. et al. Cross-Cultural Patterns of Student Victimization in Israel and Chile. J Child Fam Stud 27, 780–792 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0930-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0930-2