Educational Studies

ISSN: 0305-5698 (Print) 1465-3400 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceds20

Exploring the relationship between school bullying

and academic performance: the mediating role of
students’ sense of belonging at school

Liang Huang

To cite this article: Liang Huang (2020): Exploring the relationship between school bullying and
academic performance: the mediating role of students’ sense of belonging at school, Educational
Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03055698.2020.1749032

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2020.1749032

Published online: 09 Apr 2020.

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EDUCATIONAL STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2020.1749032

Exploring the relationship between school bullying and

academic performance: the mediating role of students’
sense of belonging at school
Liang Huang
Department of Public Administration, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In extending the understanding of how school bullying impacts Received 24 February 2019
student learning, this research explored the relationships among Accepted 25 March 2020
school bullying, students’ sense of belonging at school and aca- KEYWORDS
demic performance in science, maths and reading. Data analysis PISA2015; school bullying;
was conducted using Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong academic performance;
(China) data of the 2015 Programme for International Student sense of belonging;
Assessment (PISA2015). The results showed that both bullying mediating effect
victimisation and bullying climate had significant and negative
relationships with students’ science, maths and reading perfor-
mance. Students’ sense of belonging at school partially mediated
the effects of both bullying victimisation and bullying climate on
academic performance in science, maths and reading. Implications
for bullying intervention and further research were also discussed.

Introduction
In recent years, school bullying has become a worldwide concern (Elgar et al. 2015; OECD
2017). Since a substantial portion of the bullying events occurs during the day-to-day
school life, school bullying has been recognised as a major threat to the process of
educational production (Delprato, Akyeampong, and Dunne 2017). Importantly, the
deleterious effects of school bullying on academic achievement can persist into adult-
hood (Carlisle and Rofes 2007) and affect students’ long-term well-being (Woods and
Wolke 2004). Synthesis of literature on the association between school bullying and
academic performance indicates that school bullying impacts academic performance at
multi-levels. Both the bullying victimisation at the student level (e.g. Mundy et al. 2017)
and bullying climate at the school level (e.g. Konishi et al. 2010) can cause damage to
students’ academic performance at school. It is worth noting, however, that not all the
studies produce consistent findings on the relationship between school bullying and
academic performance (Nakamoto and Schwartz 2010). More large-scale empirical
research using representative data is needed to examine the effects of school bullying
at both the student and school levels on students’ academic performance.

CONTACT Liang Huang eliot_huang@163.com Department of Public Administration, Southeast University,

Nanjing, Jiangsu 211189, China
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 L. HUANG

While enormous efforts have been made in schools worldwide to eliminate or mitigate
the severe impacts of school bullying on students’ learning, little research has empirically
examined the mechanism underlying the association between school bullying and aca-
demic performance. There is emerging evidence showing that school bullying affects
students’ connectedness or belonging to the school community (e.g. Osterman 2000;
Waasdorp et al. 2011), which would lower students’ academic performance (e.g. Furrer
and Skinner 2003). In this regard, students’ sense of belonging at school can be
a mediating mechanism underlying the association between school bullying and aca-
demic performance. Given that students’ sense of belonging is embedded within the
educational setting, research into the mediating role of students’ sense of belonging
could shed light on current bullying intervention, prevention and policy.
Although a large body of research on school bullying has been conducted in western
societies, there has been little specific research in developing countries or economies. As far
as we are aware, no studies have simultaneously examined the way in which school bullying
at multi-levels impacts academic performance in mainland China. In fact, the frequently
reported bullying events on campus have attracted a large amount of attention in China
(China Daily 2017), especially at a time when policymakers are endeavouring to reform the
education system to better promote each student’s learning (OECD 2016a). In 2016, the
Ministry of Education and eight other central ministries in China promulgated the national
anti-bullying policy of Guidance on the Prevention and Treatment of Bullying and School
Violence, with an aim to systematically counteract bullying and school violence and remove
the hindrance of bullying in students’ learning (Ministry of Education 2016). Therefore, it has
become imperative for researchers to elucidate the mechanism underlying the association
between school bullying and academic performance in China, so as to better inform the
school-based bullying intervention (Chan and Wong 2015; Olweus 1994).

Literature review
School bullying at the student and school levels
In the existing literature, school bullying is widely recognised as negative social and group
dynamics that happen in the school settings with repeated and intentional power abuse
and on a basis of power imbalance (Smith et al. 1999). Prior studies focusing on students’
experiences with bullying incidents usually conceptualise school bullying as a student-
level construct that denotes individuals’ exposure to bullying incidence (Konishi et al.
2010). With this consideration, bullying that occurs at the student level causes harm
directly to students involved in bullying experiences, especially to those being bullied
(i.e. bullying victims) (OECD 2017).
In addition, school bullying incidents that take place during the day-to-day school life
pose substantial threats to the development of a safe and orderly learning environment in
schools (Luiselli et al. 2005). To make it more severe, in schools where there is strong
bullying climate, even those students who are not involved in bullying incidence cannot
escape from the influence of the negative school climate (Konishi et al. 2010; Unnever and
Cornell 2003). An emerging line of research has begun to identify bullying as an important
component of school climate that together with other important factors shapes the
school-level learning environment (e.g. Ertesvåg and Roland 2015; Wang, Berry, and
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 3

Swearer 2013). In fact, as a negative aspect of school climate, the school-level bullying
climate denotes schools’ “overall level of tolerance for negative interpersonal interac-
tions” (Konishi et al. 2010, 22).
With this in mind, a broad conceptualisation of school bullying was adopted in this
study. Specifically, school bullying was conceptualised into two levels: (1) the student-
level bullying victimisation denoting students’ experiences with the incidence of school
bullying from the perspective of victims; (2) the school-level bullying climate operationa-
lised by the clustering of students’ bullying experiences within the school setting.

School bullying and academic performance

Due to the high prevalence of bullying occurring within the school setting, serious
concerns about the impacts of school bullying on students’ learning have arisen.
Scholars (e.g. Delprato, Akyeampong, and Dunne 2017; Ponzo 2013) generally acknowl-
edge that school bullying, involving regular and persistent participation of students,
would cause detrimental effects on students’ learning abilities and interfere with the
process of educational production. In congruence with this point of view, a number of
researchers have empirically confirmed the pernicious effects of school bullying on
students’ academic performance.
In terms of the influence of student-level bullying victimisation, Buhs and Ladd (2001)
found that students who experienced negative peer treatment such as victimisation and
exclusion cannot fully participate in classroom learning and had poorer educational
performance than those neutral students. A more recent study from Mundy et al. (2017)
revealed that verbal and physical victimisation of eight- to nine-year-old students in
Australia was related to poorer academic performance in domains of reading, writing,
spelling and grammar. In terms of the influence of school-level bullying climate, Konishi
et al. (2010) found that bullying climate negatively predicted the reading and maths
achievement of 15-year-old Canadian students. As indicated by Waasdorp et al. (2011),
the school-level bullying climate affected students’ perceptions of safety and belonging at
school and by doing so hindered students’ educational development.
However, not all the studies have reported consistent findings. Hanish and Guerra
(2002) did not confirm the predictive effects of bullying victimisation on later academic
performance. Woods and Wolke (2004) found no significant relationship between school
bullying and decreased academic achievement. Nakamoto and Schwartz (2010) attributed
this inconsistent pattern of findings to the differences in the research settings or sampling
methodologies. More empirical research should be done to get a coherent understanding
of the influence of school bullying on academic performance (Nakamoto and Schwartz
2010). In fact, the urge for evidenced-based school bullying intervention and policy has
echoed in China where little empirical research has explored the relationship between
school bullying and academic performance (Chan and Wong 2015).

School bullying, sense of belonging and academic performance

Although the relationship between school bullying and academic performance remains
somewhat inconsistent in the existing literature, a number of scholars posited that school
bullying may result in poor academic performance through a proximal damage to student’s
4 L. HUANG

psychosocial adjustment (e.g. Juvonen, Nishina, and Graham 2000; Nakamoto and Schwartz
2010). Among the various forms of psychosocial adjustment that may link school bullying
with academic performance, school adjustment (e.g. school belonging, school liking and
avoidance and classroom engagement) is recognised as an important but still under-
researched domain (Hawker and Boulton 2000). Particularly, the high prevalence of bullying
and school violence in recent years has made students’ sense of belonging at school
a renewed concern of researchers and practitioners (Duggins et al. 2016; Ma 2003).
School belonging is a multifaceted concept in close relations to school connectedness,
school bonding and sense of school membership (Goodenow 1993a; Ma 2003). For the
study purpose, we briefly operationalised this concept as comprising students’ feeling
accepted and liked by other school members as well as students’ perceptions of con-
nectedness and belonging to the school community (Libbey 2004). Accordingly, students’
sense of belonging at school was adopted as the measure of school belonging in this
study. Given that students’ sense of belonging is school based and amendable (Ma 2003;
Osterman 2000), to elucidate how sense of belonging can buffer against the deleterious
effects of school bullying on academic performance would be informative for the devel-
opment of effective intervention programmes.
Research in the realm of self-determination theory (SDT) regards relatedness together with
competence and autonomy as the three innate needs for human development and growth
(Deci et al. 1991; Ryan and Deci 2000). Based on this theory, the extent to which students’ need
for relatedness or belonging to school is satisfied determines students’ intrinsic motivation
level and educational achievement (Furrer and Skinner 2003). Besides, the SDT denotes that
students’ sense of relatedness or belonging is embedded within the school social milieu and
shaped by such social conditions as interpersonal interactions, norms and culture (Osterman
2000). The negative school conditions such as power abuse, peer rejection and social exclusion
may undermine students’ sense of belonging at school (Osterman 2000; Ryan and Deci 2000).
As a social and cultural process taking place in the school contexts, school bullying
comprises the negative components of school social conditions (Gini 2006). In this regard,
the bullying phenomenon like bullying victimisation and bullying climate would to some
extent hamper students’ connectedness with peers and their sense of belongings to the
school community (Osterman 2000). Empirical studies have found that a safe, supportive and
caring social environment in school was conducive to the development of students’ identi-
fications with and relatedness to the school community (e.g. Ma 2003; Cemalcilar 2010),
while bullying victimisation (e.g. Delprato, Akyeampong, and Dunne 2017) or bullying
climate (e.g. Konishi et al. 2010) in the school setting was found detrimental to students’
sense of belonging. In addition, a decreased sense of belonging at school would undermine
students’ self-determined engagement in classroom learning and lead to academic failures
(Vansteenkiste, Lens, and Deci 2006). The relationship between students’ sense of belonging
and academic performance has been empirically explored by a number of scholars. Many
studies (e.g. Anderman 2002; Goodenow1993b; Niehaus, Rudasill, and Rakes 2012) have
found a positive association between students’ sense of belonging and academic perfor-
mance. Therefore, students’ sense of belonging at school is posited to be a mediating
mechanism underlying the association between school bullying and academic performance.
However, while SDT provides a seemingly compelling framework dealing with the
associations among school bullying, sense of belonging and academic performance,
empirical evidence supporting the mediating role of sense of belonging is limited.
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 5

Therefore, more empirical research should be conducted to systematically examine the

relationships among school bullying at the student and school levels, students’ sense of
belonging at school and academic performance.

The Chinese context

Despite a burgeoning body of studies on the repercussions of school bullying in western
societies, little research has been conducted in China and much less is known about how
school bullying influences students’ academic performance in the Chinese context (Chan
and Wong 2015; Tom et al. 2010). This limitation in the existing literature is worth noting
for at least two reasons. First, the high prevalence and severe impacts of campus bullying
in China warrant evidence-based intervention programmes (Ministry of Education 2016).
More research regarding the mechanism underlying the association between school
bullying and academic performance is needed. Second, the traditional collectivism in
Chinese culture highlights the importance of school as a social institute that fosters care
and support for students, especially for those with a strong connectedness to the school
community (Chen 2000). Students’ sense of belonging at school may act as a potential
buffer against the impacts of school bullying on academic performance.
The Chinese culture emphasises obligations with collective needs beyond those of
individuals compared to the culture in the west (Chen 2000; Tom et al. 2010). People are
expected to think and behave from the perspective of a group (Chen 2000). In such
a collectivistic cultural context, mutual support is high in ingroups but is unlikely when
the other person is recognised as in the outgroup (Triandis et al. 1988). In Chinese
schools, students’ behavioural pattern is shaped by high collectivism that requires
students’ identification with the group or school collectivity (Cortina, Arel, and Smith-
Darden 2017). When confronted with school bullying, students being liked and
accepted by the peer group or school community can get timely support from peers
or teachers, while students who are not identified as a member of the school commu-
nity would become isolated and left to face the difficulties alone (Adams and Hannum
2016; Tom et al. 2010). Therefore, students’ sense of belonging may play an important
role in buffering against the pernicious effects of school bullying on academic perfor-
mance in the Chinese context.
Since education system in China is undergoing a series of reforms aiming to better
cater to the learning needs of all students (OECD 2016a), to effectively counteract school
bullying and help students equally enjoy healthy development has drawn a substantial
amount of attention (Huang and Zhao 2019). With this consideration, this research aims to
explore the relationship between school bullying (i.e. bullying victimisation at the student
level and bullying climate at the school level) and students’ academic performance in the
Chinese context and to further examine the mediating role of student’s sense of belong-
ing underlying the relationship above. Specifically, this study is guided by the following
research questions:

(1) What is the relationship between bullying victimisation and students’ academic
performance?
(2) What is the relationship between the bullying climate and students’ academic
performance?
6 L. HUANG

(3) Does students’ sense of belonging at school mediate the relationship between
bullying victimisation and academic performance?
(4) Does students’ sense of belonging at school mediate the relationship between
bullying climate and academic performance?

Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong (China) data of PISA2015 were used in the
present study to address the research questions. While the research setting of the four
most developed provinces in China cannot be representative of the whole country (OECD
2016a), it can be illustrative of other social settings with similar economic, cultural and
educational development backgrounds.

Methods
Data and sample
The present study used data from PISA2015 by the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). PISA is a triennial international assessment project
aiming to evaluate the performance of school systems through testing students’ literacy
in three key assessment domains: science, maths and reading (OECD 2016b). The sample
of the four PISA-participating China's Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong pro-
vinces (B-S-J-G-China) was used in the present study. These four provinces participated in
the PISA2015 as a group. PISA2015 for the first time added the scale of bullying by peers
to the student questionnaire that measures the incidence of school bullying (OECD
2016b). The school bullying variable, together with students’ literacy in maths, reading
and science and other variables reflecting student, family and school backgrounds in the
PISA2015 database, comprised the variables needed for this study. A total of 9841 fifteen-
year-old school students from B-S-J-G-China participated in the PISA2015. Listwise dele-
tion was used to handle missing values, and 9266 cases were finally identified in this
study. Since the missing values being deleted in this study was far less than 10%, the
listwise deletion can be an appropriate approach to handling missing data (Langkamp,
Lehman, and Lemeshow 2010). In this study, there were 4863 (52.5%) males and 4403
(47.5%) females. The mean international grade of the student samples was 9.39 years
(SD = 0.68, range 7–12). 5125 (55.3%) students were at lower secondary education, 3188
(34.4%) were at upper secondary education and 953 (10.3%) were at vocational schools.

Variables
Academic performance
In PISA surveys, students’ academic performance reflects the innovative concept of literacy
(OECD 2016b). Literacy refers to “students’ capacity to apply knowledge and skills in key
subjects, and to analyze, reason and communicate effectively as they identify, interpret and
solve problems in a variety of situations” (OECD 2016b, 11). The literacy scores reflect the
extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of compulsory education have acquired
the essential knowledge and skills for future life in modern societies (OECD 2016b).
Students’ literacy in each of the three subjects of science, maths and reading was reported
in the form of plausible values. The plausible values were estimated through Item Response
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 7

Theory models that were used to infer the ability of a student based on his/her test
performance (OECD 2009). In the PISA2015, 10 plausible values were drawn from the
plausible distribution of abilities and then allocated to each student (OECD 2009). Since
the use of one single plausible value can generate unbiased point estimates and sampling
variance (Jerrim et al. 2017; OECD 2009), the first plausible value of literacy in science
(PV1SCIE), maths (PV1MATH) and reading (PV1READ) was used as students’ academic
performance in science, maths and reading, respectively, in this study.

Bullying victimisation
In PISA2015, students were asked to report the frequency with which they experience
school bullying as victims with six forms of school bullying actions during the past
12 months (OECD 2017) (see the Appendix). The measurement of school bullying based
on the perspective of victims will accurately reflect the incidence of bullying that is often
hidden within the school setting (OECD 2016b). Principal component analysis was con-
ducted to summarise students’ reported experiences with these six forms of bullying
(OECD 2017), and only one component with an eigenvalue greater than 1 was generated.
This component was then identified in this study as bullying victimisation, and the factor
score was yielded as the value of bullying victimisation variable. The internal consistency
coefficient (i.e. Cronbach’s α) of bullying victimisation scale is 0.84.

Bullying climate
The bullying victimisation at the student level was aggregated using mean value for each
school in order to derive school-level bullying climate.

Sense of belonging at school

In PISA2015, students were asked to report the extent to which they agree with a series of
trend questions about their sense of belonging at school (OECD 2017) (see the Appendix).
Students’ responses were used to construct the scale of sense of belonging at school which
was standardised to have a mean of 0 and an SD of 1 across OECD countries (OECD 2017).

Control variable
A number of background variables at the student and school level that may cause false
relationship between school bullying variables, students’ sense of belonging at school
and academic performance were controlled in this study (Cemalcilar 2010; Delprato,
Akyeampong, and Dunne 2017; Juvonen, Wang, and Espinoza 2011; Moore et al. 2015).
Included control variables related to individual students were gender (dummy variable;
1 = male, 0 = female); economic, social and cultural status (ESCS); student international
grade; and study programme (dummy variable; 1 = lower secondary education, 0 = voca-
tional school; 1 = upper secondary education, 0 = vocational school). The scale of ESCS
was computed as a weighted score of parents’ highest education level, parents’ highest
occupation status and home possessions that measures students’ overall socioeconomic
status (OECD 2017). Also included were control variables related to school characteristics:
8 L. HUANG

school location (dummy variable; 1 = urban schools, 0 = rural schools), school type
(dummy variable; 1 = public schools, 0 = private schools), school size (in hundreds of
students), class size and student–teacher ratio.

Data analysis
The data analysis involved three phases. In phase 1, correlation statistics were used to
preliminarily examine the relationship between bullying victimisation, bullying climate,
students’ sense of belonging at school and academic performance. In phase 2, a multiple
linear regression model was constructed to analyse the relationship between school
bullying at the student and school level and academic performance. The multiple linear
regression model had the following form,
Xn
Yi ¼ α0 þ β x þ γ1 BLYVTMi þ γ2 BLYCLMi þ ui1
j¼1 j ij
(1)

where Yi refers to students’ academic performance (i.e. maths, reading and science
performance), α0 is a constant, xij is a vector of control variables, BLYVTMi and BLYCLMi
are the variables of student-level bullying victimisation and school-level bullying climate,
respectively, and ui1 is the error term.
In phase 3 of the data analysis, a path analysis model was constructed to examine the
mediating role of sense of belonging on the relationship between bullying victimisation
and academic performance and on the relationship between bullying climate and aca-
demic performance. Path analysis model can be used to simultaneously explore several
related regression relationships (Muthén and Muthén 2012). The path analysis model took
the following form,
Xn
BELONGi ¼ α1 þ β X þ γ3 BLYVTMi þ γ4 BLYCLMi þ ui2
j¼1 j ij
(2)

Xn
Yi ¼ α2 þ j¼1
βj Xij þ γ5 BLYVTMi þ γ6 BLYCLMi þ γ7 BELONGi þ ui3 (3)

where Yi refers to students’ academic performance, α1 and α2 are constants, Xij is a vector of
control variables, BELONGi is the mediating variable (i.e. students’ sense of belonging at school)
between school bullying variables and academic performance and ui2 and ui3 are error terms.
PISA adopted a two-stage stratified sampling design to select sample students (OECD
2009). In the first stage of sampling, probability proportional to size method was
employed by PISA to select sample schools. In the second stage of sampling, students
were randomly selected from sample schools. In order to generate correct standard errors
of the estimated parameters and make generalisation to the population of B-S-J-G-China,
the final student weight (i.e. W_FSTUWT), 80 student replicate weights (W_FSTURWT1-
W_FSTURWT80) and Fay’s balanced repeated replication method with a 0.5 coefficient
were used in the data analysis (OECD 2009). Moreover, in data analysis of phase 3, the
method of bias-corrected bootstrap was used to conduct mediation analysis. The boot-
strap method is an advanced resampling estimation method that can generate more
accurate confident intervals (Hayes 2009). 2000 times resampling was used in this study.
The software Mplus 7.0 (Muthén and Muthén 2012) was employed to conduct data
analysis.
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 9

Results
Correlation analysis
The correlation matrix of focus variables is displayed in Table 1. All the six variables were
significantly correlated. The three variables of academic performance (i.e. PV1SCIE,
PV1MATH, PV1READ) were positively correlated with sense of belonging at school
(BELONG) and were negatively correlated with bullying victimisation (BLYVTM) and bullying
climate (BLYCLM). Sense of belonging at school (BELONG) was negatively correlated with
bullying victimisation (r = –0.21, p < 0.001) and bullying climate (r = – 0.11, p < 0.001).
Bullying victimisation was positively correlated with bullying climate (r = 0.25, p < 0.001).
The significant correlations among school bullying variables (i.e. BLYVTM, BLYCLM), sense of
belonging (BELONG) and academic performance indicated that school bullying variables
may have negative effects on students’ sense of belonging and academic performance and
that students’ sense of belonging may have positive effects on academic performance.

Multiple linear regression model

Given the negative correlations observed above between bullying victimisation and aca-
demic performance and between bullying climate and academic performance, we next
analysed the effects of school bullying variables on academic performance by using multi-
ple linear regression model (Equation (1)). Table 2 displays the results. Bullying victimisation
had significant negative effects on students’ academic performance in science (PV1SCIE)
(γ = –3.63, p < 0.01), maths (γ = –6.30, p < 0.001) and reading (γ = –5.14, p < 0.001). Bullying
climate also had significant negative effects on students’ academic performance in science
(PV1SCIE) (γ = –84.66, p < 0.001), maths (γ = –85.33, p < 0.001) and reading (γ = –88.01, p <
0.001). The results of the multiple linear regression model indicate that increased bullying
victimisation or bullying climate led to lower academic performance in science, maths and
reading, which was consistent with the results of the correlation analysis.

Path analysis model

To further examine the mediating role of student’s sense of belonging at school under-
lying the relationship between bullying victimisation and academic performance and

Table 1. Correlation matrix of focus variables.

1 2 3 4 5 6
1. SCIE 1
2. MATHS 0.91*** 1
3. READ 0.90*** 0.84*** 1
4. BELONG 0.13*** 0.15*** 0.14*** 1
5. BLYVTM −0.13*** −0.15*** −0.16*** −0.21*** 1
6. BLYCLM −0.37*** −0.37*** −0.38*** −0.11*** 0.25*** 1
M 522.196 535.387 498.494 −0.323 −0.002 −0.005
SD 102.72 104.46 103.98 0.77 0.95 0.24
Standardised correlation coefficients are reported.
***p < 0.001.
SCIE = PV1SCIE, MATHS = PV1MATH, READ = PV1READ, BELONG = sense of belonging at school, BLYVTM = bullying
victimisation, BLYCLM = bullying climate.
10 L. HUANG

Table 2. Results of multiple linear regression model.

SCIE MATHS READ
Estimate S.E. Estimate S.E. Estimate S.E.
BLYVTM −3.63** 1.26 −6.30*** 1.22 −5.14*** 1.30
BLYCLM −84.66*** 14.53 −85.33*** 13.85 −88.01*** 16.12
Male (reference group: female) 17.34*** 1.96 16.14*** 1.97 −10.21*** 2.15
ESCS 19.92*** 1.62 18.72*** 1.73 23.46*** 1.69
Grade 40.32*** 3.83 35.01*** 3.77 36.08*** 4.45
Lower secondary education 70.21*** 12.07 64.82*** 12.75 58.74*** 12.52
(reference group: vocational school)
Upper secondary education 87.58*** 10.95 91.17*** 11.89 80.11*** 11.25
(reference group: vocational school)
Urban school 37.77*** 7.58 33.83*** 8.29 39.91*** 8.79
(reference group: rural school)
Public school −11.21 14.55 −6.77 12.90 −6.87 16.20
(reference group: private school)
School size 0.03 0.19 −0.03 0.20 −0.04 0.20
Class size −0.57 0.47 −0.28 0.54 −0.42 0.53
Student–teacher ratio −0.88 0.51 −0.80 0.48 −0.91 0.47
Intercept 120.29* 51.31 169.71*** 49.86 154.87** 56.17
R square 0.42 0.39 0.41
Unstandardised regression coefficients are reported.
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
SCIE = PV1SCIE, MATHS = PV1MATH, READ = PV1READ, BELONG = sense of belonging at school, BLYVTM = bullying
victimisation, BLYCLM = bullying climate.

between bullying climate and academic performance, path analysis Equations (2) and (3)
are employed to conduct path analysis (see Methods).
Table 3 shows the results of the path analysis model. Results reveal that bullying
victimisation had direct influences on science performance (γ = –2.65, p < 0.05),
maths performance (γ = –4.82, p < 0.001) and reading performance (γ = –3.99,

Table 3. Results of path analysis model.

BELONG SCIE MATHS READ
Estimate S.E. Estimate S.E. Estimate S.E. Estimate S.E.
BLYVTM −0.16 *** 0.02 −2.65* 1.24 −4.82*** 1.19 −3.99*** 1.25
BLYCLM −0.13** 0.05 −83.86*** 14.53 −84.13*** 13.87 −87.08*** 16.10
BELONG 6.15*** 1.26 9.26*** 1.50 7.18*** 1.41
Male (reference group: female) 0.07*** 0.02 16.90*** 1.95 15.48*** 1.94 −10.73*** 2.14
ESCS 0.10*** 0.01 19.33*** 1.64 17.83*** 1.77 22.77*** 1.72
Grade 0.06* 0.03 39.96*** 3.80 34.46*** 3.71 35.66*** 4.42
Lower secondary education (reference 0.24*** 0.05 68.73*** 12.01 62.58*** 12.65 57.01*** 12.49
group: vocational school)
Upper secondary education (reference 0.04 0.04 87.33** 10.90 90.79*** 11.86 79.81*** 11.21
group:vvocational school)
Urban school (reference group: rural 0.05* 0.02 37.48*** 7.57 33.40*** 8.30 39.57*** 8.80
school)
Public school (reference group: private −0.05 0.06 −10.90 14.49 −6.29 12.82 −6.50 16.18
school)
School size 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.19 −0.03 0.20 −0.04 0.21
Class size −0.00 0.00 −0.56 0.46 −0.28 0.54 −0.41 0.53
Student–teacher ratio −0.00 0.00 −0.87 0.51 −0.78 0.48 −0.90 0.47
Intercept −0.87*** 0.27 125.66* 50.75 177.81*** 49.28 161.13** 55.82
R square 0.08 0.42 0.39 0.41
Unstandardised regression coefficients are reported.
*p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p <0.001.
SCIE = PV1SCIE, MATHS = PV1MATH, READ = PV1READ, BELONG = sense of belonging at school, BLYVTM = bullying
victimisation, BLYCLM = bullying climate.
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 11

p < 0.001), and bullying climate had direct influences on academic performance in
science (γ = –83.86, p < 0.001), maths (γ = –84.13, p < 0.001) and reading (γ = –87.08,
p < 0.001). Both bullying victimisation (γ = –0.16, p < 0.001) and bullying climate
(γ = –0.13, p < 0.01) had negative effects on students’ sense of belonging at school.
Additionally, Students’ sense of belonging at school had positive effects on science
performance (γ = 6.15, p < 0.001), math performance (γ = 9.26, p < 0.001) and
reading performance (γ = 7.18, p < 0.001). The results above reveal that bullying
victimisation and bullying climate affected academic performance through their
influences on students’ sense of belonging at school.
Bias-corrected bootstrap method was employed to conduct mediation analysis.
As shown in Table 4, bootstrap estimates indicate significant mediating effects of
sense of belonging at school on the associations between bullying victimisation
and science performance (coefficient = –0.99; 95% bootstrap CI = [−1.20, –0.77];
p < 0.001), maths performance (coefficient = –1.48; 95% bootstrap CI = [−1.76,
−1.26]; p < 0.001) and reading performance (coefficient = –1.15; 95% bootstrap
CI = [−1.35, −0.92]; p < 0.001). Inclusion of students’ sense of belonging at school in
the path analysis model (Equations (2) and (3)) reduced the direct effects of
bullying victimisation on science performance (from –3.63 to –2.65), maths perfor-
mance (from –6.30 to –4.82) and reading performance (from –5.14 to –3.99), but
not to zero, thereby indicating the partially mediating role of students’ sense of
belonging at school.
As shown in Table 5, the bootstrap estimates indicate significant mediating effects of
sense of belonging at school on the associations between bullying climate and science
performance (coefficient = –0.80, p < 0.05), maths performance (coefficient = −1.21,
p < 0.05) and reading performance (coefficient = – 0.93, p < 0.05). Inclusion of students’
sense of belonging at school in the path analysis model (Equations (2) and (3)) reduced
the direct effects of bullying climate on science performance (from –84.66 to –83.86),
maths performance (from –85.33 to –84.13) and reading performance (from –88.01
to –87.08), but not to zero, thereby indicating the partially mediating role of students’
sense of belonging at school.

Table 4. Mediation analysis of sense of belonging at school on the relationship between bullying
victimisation and academic performance.
Estimate S.E. 95% Bootstrap CI
BLYVTM→SCIE (total effect) −3.63** 1.26 [−4.92, −2.44]
BLYVTM→BELONG→SCIE −0.99*** 0.23 [−1.20, −0.77]
BLYVTM→SCIE (direct effect) 2.65*** 1.24 [−4.03, −1.63]
BLYVTM→MATHS (total effect) −6.30*** 1.22 [−7.39, −4.70]
BLYVTM→BELONG→MATHS −1.48*** 0.28 [−1.76, −1.26]
BLYVTM→MATHS (direct effect) −4.82*** 1.19 [−5.95, −3.55]
BLYVTM→READ (total effect) −5.14 *** 1.30 [−6.65, −3.85]
BLYVTM→BELONG→READ −1.15 *** 0.24 [−1.35, −0.92]
BLYVTM→READ (direct effect) −3.99*** 1.25 [−5.56, −2.93]
Unstandardised regression coefficients are reported.
**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
SCIE = PV1SCIE, MATHS = PV1MATH, READ = PV1READ, BELONG = sense of belonging at school, BLYVTM = bullying
victimisation, BLYCLM = bullying climate.
12 L. HUANG

Table 5. Mediation analysis of sense of belonging at school on the relationship

between bullying climate and academic performance.
Estimate S.E. 95% Bootstrap CI
BLYCLM→SCIE (total effect) −84.66*** 14.53 [−95.90, −68.83]
BLYCLM→BELONG→SCIE −0.80* 0.38 [−1.26, −0.49]
BLYCLM→SCIE (direct effect) −83.86*** 14.53 [−95.26, −68.25]
BLYCLM→MATHS (total effect) −85.33*** 13.86 [−97.62, −71.52]
BLYCLM→BELONG→MATHS −1.21* 0.54 [−1.85, −0.75]
BLYCLM→MATHS (direct effect) −84.13*** 13.87 [−96.07, −69.83]
BLYCLM→READ (total effect) −88.01*** 16.12 [−102.14, −71.70]
BLYCLM→BELONG→READ −0.93* 0.42 [−1.54, −0.61]
BLYCLM→READ (direct effect) −87.08*** 16.10 [−100.82, −64.53]
Unstandardised regression coefficients are reported.
*p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001.
SCIE = PV1SCIE, MATHS = PV1MATH, READ = PV1READ, BELONG = sense of belonging at school,
BLYVTM = bullying victimisation, BLYCLM = bullying climate.

Discussions and conclusion

Using PISA2015 B-S-J-G-China data, this study explored the relationship between school
bullying at the student (i.e. bullying victimisation) and school level (i.e. bullying climate)
and academic performance (i.e. science, reading and maths performance in PISA2015) in
Chinese schools. The study also looked further into the mediating effects of students’
sense of belonging on the relationship above.
School bullying both at the student level (i.e. bullying victimisation) and at the school
level (i.e. bullying climate) had significant and negative effects on academic perfor-
mance. For the effect of the student-level bullying victimisation, one-unit change in
bullying victimisation corresponds to 3.63 score change in science performance, 6.30
score change in maths performance and 5.14 score change in reading performance. For
the effect of the school-level bullying climate, one-unit change in bullying climate
corresponds to 84.66 score change in science performance, 85.33 score change in
maths performance and 88.01 score change in reading performance. The results were
consistent with findings of previous studies that bullying on campus impacts not only
the learning of some students exposed to bullying victimisation (Mundy et al. 2017) but
also the learning of all students suffering the bullying climate within the school setting
(Konishi et al. 2010).
In consistent with SDT (Deci et al. 1991; Ryan and Deci 2000), students’ sense of
belonging at school was confirmed to be the mechanism underlying the associations
between school bullying variables and academic performance in this study. In terms of
the mediating role of students’ sense of belonging at school underlying the relationship
between bullying victimisation and academic performance, students’ sense of belonging
at school accounted for about 27%, 23% and 22% of the total effects of bullying
victimisation on science, maths and reading performance, respectively. The results reveal
that a large part of the effects of bullying victimisation on academic performance can be
explained by students’ sense of belonging at school. The traditional collectivism in
Chinese culture that expects people to transcend individual needs for the sake of
collective goods may shed light on this finding (Tom et al. 2010). In such a cultural context
with a pursuit of collectivism, students’ identifications and connectedness with the peer
 EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 13

group or school community are important social resources that protect students’ learning
from being hindered by bullying victimisation (Adams and Hannum 2016). Conversely,
students who are bullied or excluded by peer groups would suffer more academic failures
due to a lack of social support from peers or teachers in the school community (Huang
and Zhao 2019). Therefore, students’ sense of belonging at school can be an especially
important buffer against the pernicious effects of bullying victimisation on academic
performance in the Chinese context.
In terms of the mediating role of students’ sense of belonging at school underlying the
relationship between bullying climate and academic performance, students’ sense of
belonging at school only accounted for about 0.9%, 1.4% and 1.1% of the total effects
of bullying climate on science, maths and reading performance, respectively. The results
reveal that only a small part of mediating effects of bullying climate on academic
performance can be explained by students’ sense of belonging at school and bullying
climate mainly exerted influences on students’ academic performance in a direct way. The
social and interpersonal nature in students’ sense of belonging at school may help explain
this finding (Cemalcilar 2010). As a reflection of social inclusion quality within the school
setting (Goodenow 1993a), students’ sense of belonging at school is largely affected by
negative interpersonal dynamics such as interpersonal discrimination, social exclusion
and bullying (Osterman 2000). That is, the student-level bullying victimisation causes
damage to students’ learning largely through weakening or destroying students’ psycho-
logical bonds with the school community (Huang 2020; Hawker and Boulton 2000). In
contrast, the school-level bullying climate as a negative contributing factor to school
social environment substantially shapes school learning conditions at both the school and
teacher levels and by doing so exerts influence on students’ learning (Konishi et al. 2010;
OECD 2016b). That is, the mediating effect of sense of belonging on the relationship
between school bullying climate and students’ academic performance is limited since the
bullying climate hinders students’ learning mainly through a direct approach.

Implications and limitations

The high prevalence of school bullying has become a major concern of policymakers,
practitioners and researchers in China (Huang and Zhao 2019). The relationship between
school bullying variables (i.e. bullying victimisation and bullying climate) on academic
performance found in the present study confirmed the severe impacts of school bullying
on student learning in the Chinese context. Specifically, school bullying not only affected
the academic performance of bullied students but also can cause damage to all students’
learning through shaping the negative school climate. Therefore, while providing bullied
students with timely support, the school should pay close attention to the often-hidden
bullying climate. Moreover, students’ sense of belonging at school was an important
mechanism underlying the associations between school bullying and academic perfor-
mance. Measures that help sustain students’ sense of belonging at school might be
effective interventions that protect students’ academic performance from being under-
mined by school bullying. In addition, the cultural features of collectivism should be taken
into account in interpreting the role that students’ sense of belonging plays in counter-
acting the impacts of campus bullying on learning outcomes in China (Adams and
Hannum 2016). Although the study was based on China’s Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu
14 L. HUANG

and Guangdong provinces, it may also shed light on the increasingly important world-
wide debate.
This study has several limitations. First, the conclusion was based on cross-sectional
data analysis that describes “association” rather than “causality”. Although we tried to
control for a number of confounding variables (e.g. ESCS, grade and school location) that
may cause false relationship, the lack of students’ prior academic ability data in PISA
database leads to the possibility that students with low academic ability may suffer more
bullying victimisation. Further studies should use longitudinal data to examine the causal
relationship between school bullying at different levels and academic performance.
Second, with 15-year-old students the sample of this study, the research findings were
only applicable to this specific group of students. Third, this study was located in China’s
four developed provinces (i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong). More studies
should be conducted to provide insights into the relationship between school bullying
and academic performance in relatively underdeveloped provinces in China.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
The work described in this paper was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities [NO. 2242020S20018].

Notes on contributor
Liang Huang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Administration, Southeast
University. His research interests include educational management, school improvement, and
quantitative research methods.

ORCID
Liang Huang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5781-1619

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Appendix Measurement
Bullying victimisation
The scale of bullying victimisation was measured by six items in the student questionnaire: (1) other
students left me out of things on purpose, (2) other students made fun of me, (3) I was threatened
by other students, (4) other students took away or destroyed things that belonged to me, (5) I got
hit or pushed around by other students and (6) other students spread nasty rumours about me.
There are four response categories for these items: “never or almost never”, “a few times a year”, “a
few times a month” and “once a week or more”.

Sense of belonging at school

The scale of sense of belonging at school was measured by six items in the student questionnaire:
(1) I feel like an outsider (or left out of things) at school, (2) I make friends easily at school, (3) I feel
like I belong at school, (4) I feel awkward and out of place in my school, (5) other students seem to
like me and (6) I feel lonely at school. The response categories are “strongly disagree”, “disagree
agree”, “agree” and “strongly agree”.