Traditional bullying in Türkiye across 12 years: HBSC trends from 2005/06 to 2017/18

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42380-026-00371-3

Bullying is widely recognized as a core negative indicator of adolescents’ relational safety and school climate within child well-being monitoring systems. However, evidence on how role-based bullying involvement changes over time in Türkiye is limited. This study aims to provide updated role-based estimates of traditional bullying and documents changes across a 12-year period. Based on data from the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Türkiye from 2005/06 to 2017/18 (total N = 11,212) the prevalence of traditional bullying and cyberbullying among 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds was analyzed. Students were classified into mutually exclusive roles based on standard HBSC indicators of bullying victimization and perpetration: uninvolved, victim-only, bully-only, and bully-victim dual role. Cyberbullying roles were described for 2017/18 only. Design-adjusted multinominal logistic regression models, including wave-by-sex and wave-by-age interactions, were estimated. In 2017/2018, traditional bullying prevalence (victim-only: 11.5%; bully-only: 10.8%; bully-victim: 7.0%) exceeded cyberbullying prevalence. Multinomial logistic regression with uninvolved adolescents as the reference category indicated that over the 12-year period, traditional victim-only and bully-victim involvement significantly declined, whereas bully-only involvement showed a substantial population-level increase. The increase in bully-only involvement was observable across age groups, including the youngest reference cohort. Among interaction effects, only the bully-victim role showed a significant Wave × Age 15 effect, indicating that the population-level decline in this role was substantially attenuated for 15-year-olds. Boys consistently demonstrated higher odds of bullying involvement across all traditional and digital roles. These role-specific trends provide a surveillance benchmark for monitoring school safety as a child well-being indicator in Türkiye, highlighting that aggregate improvements may conceal divergent role- and age-specific trajectories.