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: With respect to victimization, 17.4% of students said they were a target of cyberbullying in 2019, compared to 16.5% in 2016. For offending, 6.3% said they had cyberbullied others in 2019 compared to 5.6% in 2016. These rates reflect what they had experienced in the previous 30 days, though we also saw small (but statistically insignificant) increases in the number of students who said they had ever been cyberbullied (or had cyberbullied others) in their lifetime. When it came to school bullying, however, there were some dramatic differences. In 2019, over half (52.3%) of students said they had been bullied at school in the past 30 days, compared to 38.6% in 2016 (a 35% increase). 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).