A latent transition analysis of bullying and victimization in Chinese primary school students

Bullying is a social phenomenon that impacts a large number of children and young people, worldwide. This study aimed to longitudinally examine the development of bullying and victimization in Chinese students in grades 4, 5, and 6. We used latent class analysis to empirically identify groups of youth with different bullying and victimization patterns, and then used latent transition analysis to explore the movement of children between these latent classes over time. Results showed that: (1) across the three time points, students could be classified into four classes: bullies, victims, bully-victims, and non-involved children; and (2) students in the non-involved class tended to remain in that class when moving to higher grades, students in the bully and victims classes tended to transition to the non-involved class, while students in the bully-victims class tended to transition to the bullies class. Thus, future intervention should be implemented to prevent bully-victims from bullying behaviors.