Bullying of students who receive special education services for learning and behaviour difficulties in Norway

Abstract

In Norway 5.8% of students report being bullied as much as three or more times a month [UDIR. 2021a. Student Survey 2020 [Elevundersøkelsen 2020]. https://www.udir.no/tall-og-forskning/finn-forskning/rapporter/elevundersokelsen-2020-nasjonale-tall-formobbing-og-arbeidsro/]. The present study investigates the likelihood of students being bullied based on their special education status (i.e. receiving special educational services or not), and the type of learning or behaviour difficulties that are more likely to attract bullying. Data were collected about students aged nine to 15 (N = 2756) from 29 schools across two municipalities in Norway. Using conservative methodological approaches to control for possible covariate bias, our results reveal that the students receiving special education services were not more likely to be bullied than their peers not receiving such services. When focusing on the type of learning and behaviour difficulties students had, we found that students with behaviour and general learning difficulties were most likely to be bullied, while students with specific learning difficulties or hearing/vision difficulties were not more likely to be bullied as compared with their peers. Our findings indicate that there may be other factors impacting students’ likelihood of being bullied, outside of their special education status. These findings offer an important contribution to the field of special education and bullying.