A study of bullying among Massachusetts middle and high school students by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found strong links between bullying and family violence, suicide, and drug and alcohol use. The report, published on April 22, 2011, is based on data from a 2009 survey of 2,859 middle school and 2,948 high school students.
The data show that students who report being involved in school bullying, both as bully and target, were five times more likely to say that they had been physically hurt by a family member or had witnessed family violence than students who were not involved as either a bully or a victim. At the high school level, 31% of students who said they had been both a bully and a target reported witnessing family violence within the past year.
Overall, 43.9% of middle school students and 30.5% of high school students reported being involved in bullying, most as victims but also some as bullies (7.5% of middle school students) and some as both bully and victim (9.6% of middle school students). The study defined bullying victimization broadly to include physical, verbal, and relational bullying (social isolation, spreading rumors, etc.).
Because the study is the first to look at a broad range of risk factors associated with bullying in a single state, the researchers caution that it is not possible to compare the results with other states.
