The relationship between primary school students' exposure to bullying and demographic/personal factors

The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which primary school students are exposed to different types of bullying and to explore how this exposure relates to various demographic and personal factors. The study focuses on four types of bullying—physical, verbal, emotional, and digital—and analyzes the relationships between students' exposure levels and variables such as gender, age, family structure, and media use habits. The research was conducted using a quantitative approach, employing both descriptive and relational survey models. These models were chosen to depict the current situation and to identify potential relationships among the variables. The study was carried out with 281 primary school students from a district in the Aegean Region of Türkiye, selected through a convenience sampling method. For data collection, the "School Violence/Bullying Scale" developed by Çınkır and Karaman-Kepenekçi and later adapted for middle school students by Çankaya, was revised for primary school use by Demircioğlu and Akar. In this updated version, a digital bullying subscale was added. The 16-item scale, covering physical, verbal, emotional, and digital bullying, was validated through confirmatory factor analysis. According to the findings, the most frequently reported form of bullying was verbal bullying (37.76%), followed by emotional (36.66%), physical (35.95%), and digital bullying (25.75%). The average total bullying score among students was calculated as 27.32 (SD = 10.24). These results indicate that verbal and emotional bullying are the most prevalent in school settings, while digital bullying occurs at a lower but still noteworthy level. In terms of gender, male students were found to experience higher rates of bullying compared to female students. Although digital bullying had the lowest prevalence, a significant relationship was observed between the duration of digital media use and exposure to bullying. Additionally, an increase in age was associated with higher rates of bullying exposure. On the other hand, parental education levels did not show a significant correlation with bullying. Notably, media use habits—especially prolonged television viewing and digital gaming—were found to be linked to bullying experiences. These findings highlight the need to promote media literacy among students, raise awareness among families, and strengthen school-based preventive interventions in the fight against bullying. Keywords: Peer bullying, digital bullying, personal characteristics, family structure, primary school