Peer aggression in Italy: Understanding bullying from an adolescents’ point of view

This chapter aims to describe the prevalence of bullying and cyberbullying among Italian students in middle and high school, taking into account the role of gender and Grade level and present brief stories about how young people relate at school. Italian adolescents showed a higher rate of indirect victimisation than Spanish students. Higher rates of relational aggression compared to physical aggression were also found among Italian students in a cross-cultural study involving nine countries. In terms of the relationship of bullying and cyberbullying with student well-being, a longitudinal study found that Italian students who engaged in repeated aggressive episodes showed serious school difficulties as well as externalising and internalising problems. The Peer Aggression and Well-being Questionnaire, including the Student Aggression and Victimisation Questionnaire was translated into Italian and then back-translated to English. The Peer Aggression and Well-being Questionnaire were filled-in online by students during school hours on campus in their IT classroom.