Title: School Bullying Rates Increase by 35% from 2016 to 2019 - Cyberbullying Research Center
Headings: School Bullying Rates Increase by 35% from 2016 to 2019
School Bullying Rates Increase by 35% from 2016 to 2019
By Justin W. Patchin
17.4% of students said they were a target of cyberbullying in 2019, compared to 16.5% in 2016.
In 2019, over half of students said they had been bullied at school in the last 30 days.

Content: In addition, almost one-third (30.4%) of students said they had bullied others at school in 2019, compared to just 11.4% in 2016. There wasn’t a difference in the number of students who had experienced bullying at school at some point in their lifetime (73.1% vs. 72.8%), but the number who reported that they had bullied others at least once in their life did increase to 40.7% from 31%. In 2019, over half of students said they had been bullied at school in the last 30 days. The obvious next question is, what explains the apparent increase in school bullying behaviors? It could be that students are more aware of school bullying as a problem (perhaps because of a presumed link between bullying and more severe forms of school violence) and are more comfortable reporting it (at least on an anonymous survey). The increase in the number of students who said they had bullied others at school could be a function of them better understanding what bullying is and realizing now that perhaps their behaviors could be defined as bullying, whereas in the past they might not have considered them to be so. Maybe schools are being more intentional about educating students about bullying, therefore it is on the top of their minds. It could also be a result of broader nationwide attention to bullying from the federal government, state and local politicians, or celebrities and athletes. But, cyberbullying has probably been talked about just as much and yet we didn’t see a significant increase in those rates. So where does all of this leave us?