Bullying in Schools of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Background

As of 2015, adolescents between 10 and 19 years of age represented 15% of the total population of Mongolia. Bullying is gaining increasing attention in school settings worldwide. In 2013, 26.8% of all students between 13 and 17 years of age were bullied on one or more days during the past 30 days in Mongolia. Youth who are bullied are more likely to experience depression and other health concerns. However, little is known about bullying in Mongolia; only few surveys have been conducted using a few questions in larger nationwide studies. Moreover, all existing studies have examined rates of bullying victimization, not bullying behavior. Yet there have been recent calls to understand the complete picture of bullying including targets, bullies, and bystanders, in order to design and deliver effective bullying prevention interventions. Therefore, we conducted a survey to better understand bullying in Mongolia. The current analyses describe the bullying behavior in Mongolian adolescents, and also explore whether bulling behavior varies by gender, school type, grade, location of schools, attitudes towards bullying and being a victim of bullying oneself.

Methods

Data were collected in Mongolia in 2017, using a cross sectional survey design. One hundred students from 7 to 12 grades of schools in Ulaanbaatar were recruited. The Bullying Prevention Initiative Student Survey, developed by the Colorado Trust was translated into and administered in Mongolian. Data was collected on types of bullying perpetrated (physical, internet-based, and verbal). We performed chi square tests to test the association between the three different bullying types; and age, gender, location of the school, school type, being a victim of bullying and attitudes towards bullying. Binary logistic regression was then conducted to look for significant predictors of bullying behavior.  

Results

The binary analysis revealed that being a verbal bully was significantly associated with being verbally bullied but not being bullied physically and in Internet.  Of those who bully others verbally, 61.5% have been teased and said mean things to them another 62.0% of them had been spread rumors and made fun of them in the past whereas only 33.3% of those who did not bully others were teased and 38.6% had others spread rumors/make fun of them. Teasing and saying mean things remained a significant predictor of being a verbal bully of others in logistic regression analyses, controlling for school location, gender, school type, age, and attitude and spreading rumors. There were no associations between being a victim of bullying others either physically or on the Internet bullied physically and in Internet. Also there were no associations found between being a bully (of any type) age, gender, location of the school, school type, and attitudes towards bullying. 

Implications

The findings from this study suggested that there is a strong need to address comprehensively the targets of bullying including the bullies. Future studies can examine not only the victims of bullying, but also bullies as important targets of prevention programs. Policies and practice around youth and adolescence in Mongolia should therefore focus on bullying behavior.