How Bullying Contributes to K-12 Student Absenteeism

Published April 4, 2024 on eSchool News.

The National Center for Education Statistics released its findings from the school survey on crime and safety: 2021-2022 and reported that bullying occurs at least once a week in 28 percent of middle schools. Cyberbullying, increasingly more common, occurred at least once per week in 37 percent of middle schools, 25 percent of high schools, and 6 percent of elementary schools.

Bullying can happen throughout a lifetime but is most common in early adolescence (10-12 years old). Adolescents experience significant change, vulnerability, and impressionability during this formative developmental period. Previously thought to “diminish over time,” a review of longitudinal studies on bullying and subsequent outcomes revealed that the negative impacts could be experienced years later. From missing school to devastating psychological distress, the consequences of bullying are so detrimental that scholars refer to it as a public health problem.

A global health problem

Dan Olweus published significant findings on bullying in 1978, and the topic has received considerable attention in the academic literature since the late 90s. Decades of international research inform us that bullying is prevalent and harmful for “all involved.”

Authors Laith and Vaillancourt (2022) labeled bullying “a global health problem that often prevents children from achieving their fundamental right to education.” Barlett and colleagues (2024) also describe bullying, and cyberbullying specifically, “as a public health concern” due to its prevalence and detrimental outcomes, which include depression and anxiety, low life satisfaction and self-esteem, and loneliness. Individuals who victimize others are more likely than their non-bullying peers to engage in delinquency, substance abuse, and violence even into adulthood.  

In the immediate term, bullying negatively impacts school attendance and academic achievement–two factors that have lasting effects on whether students become healthy and happy thriving adults. Attendance and achievement predict students’ probability of graduating high school, which in turn predicts lifetime earnings. I reviewed recently published articles on the relationship between bullying and these academic factors. Here are a few takeaways.

Bullying and absenteeism

A 2021 study on high schoolers’ experience with bullying revealed that being a victim of cyber, physical, or relational bullying was associated with increased absences. Among students experiencing relational victimization (the most common form), perceiving “low levels of teacher attachment are associated with the most increases in absences.” High levels of perceived school safety and teacher support acted as a buffer against absences for those students experiencing relational bullying.

Alanko and colleagues analyzed time trends of biennial data collected in Finland between 2000 and 2019. The analysis revealed that any association with bullying increased the odds of school absences due to illness and truancy. The odds of illness and truant absences “increased by 45 percent if bullying victimization was reported several times a week.” Perpetrating bullying was also associated with absences. Moreover, bullies had higher odds of truancies (unexcused absences) compared to illness absences (victims’ rates of absences didn’t vary by absence type).

Read the full article on eSchool News.