School bullying in the Arab world: A Review

Objective: School bullying is recognized as a global problem with serious academic, physical, social, and psychiatric consequences. The objective of the present review is to inform lay and formal psychological theories proposed for the understanding of the cultural, social, personality and school-related contextual factors implicated in school bullying in the Arab world and in order to invoke the need for the advancement of national policies, research agendas, and school focused anti-bullying programs. Method: A literature search was conducted for the purposes of reviewing the literature available on school bullying. Results: While peer victimization has been a preoccupation of Europeans and North Americans for many decades, interest in school bullying in the Arab world is a recent phenomenon. The limited prevalence studies on school bullying in the Arab world suggest varying rates with 20.9% of middle-school adolescents reporting bullying in the United Arab Emirates, 31.9% in Morocco, 33.6% in Lebanon, 39.1% in Oman, and 44.2% in Jordan; boystypically endorsing more engagement in peer victimization than girls. Conclusion: There is a need for more research in the Arab world concerning forms, signs, locations and consequences of school bullying in addition to national policies and school-based, anti-bulling program initiatives.