Parental Perspectives About What It Means to Bully

ORCID

May: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8275-6773

MSU Affiliation

College of Arts and Sciences; Department of Sociology; James Worth Bagley College of Engineering; Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Creation Date

2026-06-01

Abstract

While most bullying researchers argue that any definition of bullying must include three core elements (power imbalance, intent to cause harm, and repetitive negative actions), relatively few researchers have examined whether parents define bullying along these three elements. Among those that have, most find that parents focus on the intent to cause harm and ignore or discount the power imbalance and repetition elements. Using qualitative data from 50 parents in a southeastern state, we explore parental definitions of bullying and trace how their definitions match those three elements. We find that most parents include intent to cause harm in their definition but far fewer mention the power imbalance or repetition commonly found in scholarly definitions. Additionally, we uncover a fourth component that was important for several parents: the fact that bullies engage in that activity to build their own self-esteem. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Publication Date

9-27-2022

Publication Title

Journal of Family Issues

Publisher

SAGE Publications

First Page

3273

Last Page

3292

Rights

© The Author(s) 2022

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X221129865