Bullying from a cross-cultural perspective : A comparison between Austria and Japan

This paper aims to compare the prevalence of bullying and victimization among students in Austria and Japan and to discuss cross-cultural differences based on the current research. Data from Japan were based on school reports from MEXT (2010) and from students' self-assessments (Morita, 1999). The Austrian data were primarily drawn from international surveys (HBSC data of 2006) and national studies (Gradinger et al., 2009 etc), and based mainly on self-reports from anonymous students. Overall, the results of this review showed some differences in the prevalence and types of bullying between the two countries. According to the student reports, bullying and victimization in elementary and lower secondary schools occurs at a higher rate in Austria than in Japan. This cross-cultural difference may partly be explained by the fact that Japanese students have a tendency not to report bullying as frequently as students in Western cultures. Regarding the type of bullying in both countries, verbal bullying was most common, but the rate of this type of bullying was much higher in Japan. However in the case of physical bullying, the rate in Austria is higher than in Japan.Social bullying in terms of "taking or hiding things from others" has been reported in both countries to a similar degree.