The negative impact of bullying victimization on academic literacy and social integration: Evidence from 51 countries in PISA

Exploiting data of 210,523 students in 51 countries from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), we estimate the causal effect of bullying victimization on adolescents’ academic literacy and social integration by using Logistic model, coarsened exact matching (CEM), and structural equation model (SEM). This article reviews risk and influencing factors associated with bullying victimization within the context of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework. The results indicate that: (1) boys, middle school students, repeaters, and truancy report significantly higher bullying victimization; (2) bullying victimization is associated with poor academic achievement and social integration problems such as bad classmate relations, lack of school belonging, and sense of loneliness; (3) study time, academic engagement, and online socialization are identified as the mediators between bully victimization and academic literacy and social integration. The findings highlight the importance of creating a safe and positive school environment to fight against negative outcomes associated with bullying victimization.