Implementing the KiVa antibullying program: recognition of stable victims

Abstract

Teachers do not always recognise students who are victimised by their peers. In this study, we examined the recognition of stable victims in 76 schools beginning to implement the KiVa antibullying programme. We focused on 348 victims (9–15 years) who reported victimisation at the pretest and still at wave 2, after five months of programme implementation. Only 24% of these stable victims received the attention of school personnel during the school year. Multilevel logistic regression analyses revealed that male victims were recognised more often than female victims, but only in elementary school level. Peer reputation as a victim, as well as telling an adult about one’s plight increased the likelihood of recognition by school personnel, whereas bullying others (in addition to being victimised) decreased it. The study emphasises the importance of encouraging school personnel to put more effort in reaching the victimised students.

Keywords:

• antibullying programme
• indicated intervention
• recognition
• victimization

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the whole KiVa research team for support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Based on the returned screening forms, a total of 381 students in the target sample were recognised as victims by school personnel during the year. Our focus sample, that is stable victims accounted 21.5% of these recognised students. The rest of recognised students (i.e. non-stable victims) were out of scope of this study, including students reporting victimisation only at T1, or at T2 (accounting for 11.0 and 13.1% of the recognised victims, respectively), and those who did not report victimisation either at T1 or T2 (accounting for 54.3% of recognised victims). In general, there were statistically significant differences between stable victims recognised vs. non-stable victims found in school team reports: stable victims scored higher on both direct (M = 2.07 vs. M = .60, t(107.29) = 11.37, p < .001) and indirect (M = 1.61 vs. M = .44, t(94.73) = 7.60, p < .001) victimisation, bullying others (M = .73 vs. M = .44, t(119.67) = 2.73, p = .007) and telling about victimisation (64% vs. 36% (χ²(1) = 11.65, p = .001). They received more peer nominations as being victimised than non-stable victims (M = .22 vs. M = .12, t(108.18) = 4.77, p < .001).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 134843].