Parental Care and Family Support as Moderators on Overlapping College Student Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimization during the Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The study examined whether parental care and family support moderate the association between school bullying victimization and cyberbullying victimization among college students by applying the social anthropological approach and social control theory

Method

Data were collected for 261 college students (57.9% female) aged between 18 to 24 or older from a university in the Midwest region of the United States. A latent moderated structural equations approach was utilized

Results

The data revealed that bullying victimization was positively associated with cyberbullying victimization. Moreover, parental care was a significant moderator between bullying victimization and cyberbullying victimization

Discussion

These findings have implications of preventing victims of bullying becoming victims of cyberbullying. Parental involvement especially needs to be emphasized for college students’ cyberbullying prevention and intervention programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying victimization
• cyberbullying victimization
• parental care
• family support
• the social anthropological approach
• social control theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.