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Дополнительное образование и буллинг: есть ли связи?
Background. School bullying remains highly prevalent and is associated with significant negative consequences for adolescents’ mental health, academic outcomes, and social functioning. At the same time, the role of extracurricular education as a potential protective or risk factor remains insufficiently studied and inconsistently represented in the literature.
Objectives. The study aims to examine the association between adolescents’ participation in extracurricular education and their likelihood of experiencing school bullying, as well as to analyze contextual characteristics of participation (setting, format, and type of activity) as risk and protective factors.
Study Participants. The study included 10,766 adolescents aged 11–15 years (M = 12.9; SD = 1.4; 57.1% girls) from both urban and rural areas, representing diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
Methods. A survey design was employed using a short version of the School Bullying Questionnaire (Novikova et al., 2021) along with a set of items assessing involvement in extracurricular education. The data were analyzed using regression models with cluster-robust standard errors, controlling for socio-demographic variables; multicollinearity and heteroskedasticity were also assessed.
Results. More than 62% of adolescents reported experiencing at least one form of bullying in the past month. The type of extracurricular activity (including sports) was not significantly associated with levels of victimization. However, contextual factors played a significant role: participation in school-based activities was associated with a lower risk of bullying, whereas individual formats, as well as activities conducted at home or online, were associated with a higher risk. Socio-demographic characteristics and academic achievement also showed significant effects.
Conclusions. The findings do not support the hypothesis that participation in extracurricular education per se has a protective effect against bullying; however, they partially support the hypothesis that this relationship is context-dependent. The protective potential is linked not to the type of activity but to the conditions under which it is implemented, highlighting the need to more precisely account for social mechanisms (particularly social capital) in the development of bullying prevention strategies.