An Exploratory Study of Secondary School Student Victimization in Kosovo and Its Correlates

ABSTRACT

Most of the existing literature and evidence on school violence and victimization comes from high-income countries, and there is a lack of evidence on developing countries. This study examines the prevalence of student victimization and its association with individual, family, and school-related correlates, focusing on the representative sample from 13 municipalities of Kosovo among 12,040 students. Overall, 77% of the students reported being victimized by at least one type of harmful act of violence in the last month; the most prevalent acts were cursing or verbal victimization (61%), followed by pushing and grabbing (45%) while being threatened with a weapon was relatively rare (2.2%). Of all factors, students’ perception of risky peers had the most significant impact on school victimization. The authors recommend a multidisciplinary approach is required to respond to the complexity of school victimization in Kosovo

KEYWORDS:

• Student victimization
• schools
• Kosovo
• socio ecological model
• correlates

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaltrina Kelmendi

Kaltrina Kelmendi is an associate professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Prishtina, in Kosovo. Her research interests are related to domestic violence, gender-based violence, youth violence, drug abuse, childprotection and resilience.

Aliriza Arënliu

Aliriza Arënliu is a professor at Department of Psychology at University of Prishtina, HasanPrishtina. His research focuses in school violence and prevention, refugee mental health an drecently on impact of COVID-19 pandemics in mental health and education proces.

Rami Benbenishty

Rami Benbenishty is a Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main areas of interest are the safety, welfare, and wellbeing of children, both in community normative settings, such as schools, and in out of home placements, such as foster homes and residential care.

Ron Avi Astor

Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjory Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role ofthe physical, social-organizational, and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of school violence.

Zamira Hyseni Duraku

Zamira Hyseni Duraku is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology,Faculty of Philosophy, University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”. The focus of her research interests includes multiple factors influencing the quality of education systems, mental health, and academic performance of students, including factors influencing teachers’ work and parents’ involvement.

Jon Konjufca

Jon Konjufca is a teaching assistant at Department of Psychology at University of Prishtina, Hasan Prishtina and currently enrolled in PhD studies at University of Basel. His research interests focus on statistical analysis in behavioral sciences.