Students' School Bullying Victimization and Academic Performance: The Moderating Role of School-Level Victimization Among Chinese Adolescents

Background and Purpose: Existing theories and empirical studies have shown that students who experience school bullying victimization tend to perform poorly academically. Previous studies have primarily focused on the direct effects of victimization on academic performance. However, an increasing number of researchers posit that certain school contextual factors may significantly moderate this relationship between students’ school victimization and their school outcomes, including academic performance. Among these school contextual factors, school-level victimization has been frequently discussed in the literature, leading to debate about how it moderates the relationship between students’ victimization experiences and their educational outcomes. This study aims to investigate the link between school bullying victimization and academic performance as well as the moderating role of school-level victimization.

Methods: This study utilized the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data from 11,818 Chinese students. School bullying victimization and academic performance were based on students’ self-reported data. School-level victimization was derived by aggregating individual-level students’ school bullying victimization scores for each school. Data analysis was conducted using Stata 17.0, following a three-step analytical procedure. First, descriptive analysis and bivariate correlation analysis of the study’s variables were conducted. Second, an unconditional model (model 0) was established. Third, two-level multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models were employed to explore the relationship between students’ school bullying victimization and academic outcomes as well as the moderator of school-level victimization.

Results: This study showed that students’ exposure to school violence is negatively and significantly associated with students’ academic performance, indicating that students who experienced school victimization are more likely to exhibit lower academic performance. Moreover, school-level victimization could moderate the negative relationship between students’ school bullying victimization and academic achievement. Specifically, the negative association between students’ exposure to school violence and academic achievement is exacerbated in schools with high levels of victimization but weakens in schools with low victimization levels.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings support the heuristic model of school violence and bullying, indicating that a positive school climate or low school-level victimization can mitigate the negative relationship between students’ experiences of school victimization and academic performance. However, the findings contradict the predictions of the person-group dissimilarity model, which argues that the adverse effects of students’ school bullying victimization are exacerbated in low-victimization contexts. The findings provide further support and evidence for the current debate over which theoretical framework better explains the moderating role of school-level victimization in the relationship between students’ school bullying victimization and academic performance.

Moreover, based on this study’s findings, several practical suggestions can be considered. While previous research on improving academic performance among Chinese adolescents has predominantly emphasized increasing educational resources, such as after-school tutoring classes, this study highlights the significant detrimental impacts of school bullying victimization on academic outcomes. Potential strategies and programs to improve academic performance should prioritize the prevention of school violence. Future school practitioners in China should adopt effective intervention and prevention programs to reduce the negative impacts of school victimization on academic achievement and foster a positive school climate that mitigates these effects.