IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0211124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Preadolescent children’s perception of power imbalance in bullying: A thematic analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Helen J Nelson
  • Sharyn K Burns
  • Garth E Kendall
  • Kimberly A Schonert-Reichl

Abstract

Bullying in schools is associated with an extensive public health burden. Bullying is intentional and goal oriented aggressive behavior in which the perpetrator exploits an imbalance of power to repeatedly dominate the victim. To differentiate bullying from aggressive behavior, assessment must include a valid measure of power imbalance as perceived by the victim. And yet, to date, there remains no agreement as to how to most accurately measure power imbalance among preadolescent children. This qualitative study explored children’s (age 9 to 11) understanding of power imbalance through thematic analysis of focus group discussions. Subthemes that emerged as influencing power imbalance include: age of victim, peer valued characteristics, and group membership and position. Subthemes of empathy and peer valued characteristics emerged as protecting against the negative impact of power imbalance.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen J Nelson & Sharyn K Burns & Garth E Kendall & Kimberly A Schonert-Reichl, 2019. "Preadolescent children’s perception of power imbalance in bullying: A thematic analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-15, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0211124
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211124
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211124&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0211124?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0211124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.