THE CONTRIBUTION OF BULLYING AT SCHOOL AND LOW SELF-ESTEEM TO ACTS OFDELINQUENCY AMONG AUSTRALIAN TEENAGERS

In an examination of factors associated with delinquent behaviour of a dolescent school children, questionnaires were administered to student s (N=763) between the ages of 13 and 17 years attending a large coeduc ational high school in Australia. They answered questions anonymously to provide measures of (i) the extent to which they bullied their peer s at school, (ii) their self-esteem and (iii) the frequency with which they engaged in delinquent activities. In general, girls reported les s delinquent behaviour than boys. Among girls, but not boys, low level s of self-esteem were associated with reported bullying behaviour. How ever, results of multiple regression analyses, controlling for age, sh owed that for both sexes comparatively high levels of reported engagem ent in peer bullying and relatively low self-esteem were each independ ently and significantly associated with the measure of delinquent beha viour. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.