As part of a project titled “Psychology in support of children’s and adolescents rights” implemented by the Lombard Board of Psychologists, a study has been carried out on bullying and cyber bullying in collaboration with the Casa Pediatrica, a paediatric service run by the Fatebenefratelli Sacco hospital, the first hospital in Italy that offers a full service to both victims and bullies.
The research aims at providing an overall picture of the perception Italian minors have nowadays with regard to the extent of bullying and cyber bullying in schools and on social networking sites.
The sample examined was recruited from among the 1200 minors residing in Lombardy who have requested help from the Paediatric Services. 312 questionnaires were distributed to the sample, consisting of 155 respondents aged between 6 and 10 years (49.7% females, 50.3% males) and 157 respondents aged 14-18 (48.4% females and 51.6% males). The data were collected personally by three researchers in the form of a structured questionnaire, requiring open-ended answers.
49.7% of the children say they have witnessed “others engaged in acts of bullying” and 36.1% state that they “have been bullied themselves”; only 13.5% admits to “having bullied others”. 36.8% of respondents also declare that they “own a Smartphone”. 31% of the children making up the sample state that they have received “verbal abuse, insults, mockery, threats, extortion or inappropriate proposals on social networking sites”. As far as adolescents are concerned, 84.1% of the sample say they own a Smartphone. 46.5% of adolescents declare that they have witnessed “acts of bullying by others”, 35.7% say they have “been bullied” themselves. Only 17.8% of the sample admit to “having been a bully”. So, on an overall basis, 60% of the minors questioned declare that there have been episodes of bullying in their schools. 47.7% of the children and 57.3% of the adolescents report having received verbal abuse, insults, threats, mockery, extortion or inappropriate proposals on social networking sites. The percentage of cyber bullying victims is higher among girls in both age groups.

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