The complexities of school bullying : perceptions and patterns within Ghanaian classrooms.

This paper uses multiple student perspectives to provide an overview of bullying in Ghanaian schools. There are a high number of discrepancies between student’s perceptions of bullying, emphasizing the benefits of using both self-reports and peer-reports in bullying research. When defining a bully or a victim as an individual with at least 1 confirmed instance, low-performing, non-poor, highly abused, physically large, and isolated students are more likely to be bullies. Students who have been victimized themselves are also more likely to be bullies. Girls, highly abused, and isolated students are more likely to be victims. Analyzing student-student pairs reveals similar determinants of bullies and victims, with the addition of a significant association between gender and bullying likelihood. Finally, there are many significant interactions between these characteristics, indicating that determining bullies and victims is complex and multifaceted.