Association between school climate and bullying victimization: Advancing integrated perspectives from parents and cross-country comparisons.

To advance our scientific understanding about school climate and bullying victimization from the perspectives of both parents and cross-country comparisons, the present study examined the cross-country similarities and differences of the associations between overall school climate and 3 forms of bullying victimization between United States (U.S.; N = 1,251) and Chinese (N = 999) parents across elementary, middle, and high schools. Confirmatory factor analyses and measurement invariance tests were first conducted to examine the cross-country validity of the Delaware Bullying Victimization Survey-Home (DBVS-H) between U.S. and Chinese parents. Comparison of latent means of bullying victimization revealed that U.S. parents reported higher frequencies of social/relational and verbal bullying victimization compared with Chinese parents. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then used to examine the cross-country differences of the relationship between school climate and bullying victimization. For parents in both China and the U.S., school climate was found to be significantly associated with 3 types of bullying victimization (i.e., physical, verbal, and social/relational). The negative associations between school climate and all 3 types of bullying victimization reported by U.S. parents were significantly stronger than those found in Chinese parents. Implications for bullying prevention efforts involving parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds were discussed.