Revisão sobre Características de Meninos e Meninas que Praticam Bullying Escolar

Abstract

Bullying at school affects the health and development of children and adolescents. This study aimed to describe evidence about the characteristics of boys and girls identified as bullies in bullying situations. This is a review with publications from 2015 to 2020, operationalized in SciELO, Scopus, Web of Science, and PsycINFO. Data were independently extracted by two reviewers and submitted to methodological quality assessment. The corpus was composed of 27 primary studies. It was found that boys do more bullying and are more engaged in physical aggression. Girls engage more in verbal or psychological type violence. Social/cultural issues are factors consistently associated with such differences. Regarding the consequences of the aggression perpetrated, bullies, regardless of gender, may also have mental health problems. This study gathers quantitative evidence on characteristics of boys and girls who engage in bullying at school. Differences/similarities should be considered in anti-bullying intervention programs.