The interaction between bullying, socioeconomic background and attitudes on educational achievements: Evidence from the Balkan countries with TIMSS 2019 data

Despite substantial evidence about the negative impact of bullying on academic achievement, there is relatively scarce literature on the issue of bullying in the Balkan countries, which is an area that is prone to violence also in schools.In this study, we use data gathered from the 2019 TIMSS assessment of 4th grade students in eight Balkan countries, and implement mixed models of achievements in mathematics and science as well as student-and school-level explanatory variables to determine the interactions between these variables and bullying.The results indicate that students who are more frequently targets of bullying experience a stronger positive impact of confidence and socioeconomic background, while there is no significant impact of the school's emphasis on success and lower shortages of resources.Nonetheless, while student-level indicators generally have a lower impact on achievements than school-level ones, student-level confidence has a stronger effect than the average confidence at the school level.Our results provide evidence on possible interventions against bullying for policymakers in the region.