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Published on: September 19, 2019
Verbal abuse, gender and well-being at school
Miriam A Eliasson1, Lucie Laflamme, Kerstin Isaksson
1Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden. miriam.eliasson@ali.se
Unlabelled:
The purpose was to assess the prevalence of students' experience of verbal abuse and its effects on school satisfaction and well-being from a gender perspective. Attention was paid to age differences.
Methods:
The study population consisted of all students in grades 6 and 8 in a Swedish city. A total of 1,006 students, ages 12-15, completed a self-administered questionnaire (response rate 84 percent).
Results:
Boys reported experiencing insults and threats to a greater extent, whereas girls more frequently experienced sexualized name-calling, specifically "whore". Both genders reported boys as perpetrators of verbal abuse most often. Further, girls generally reported lower levels of school satisfaction and well-being, while verbal abuse had a negative effect on the well-being of both genders.
Conclusions:
Verbal abuse between students is a predominantly masculine practice, more pronounced among older students. It impacts negatively on the school satisfaction and well-being of both girls and boys and does not have to be frequent, repeated, or combined with other kinds of harassment to have this effect.
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