Citation

Georgiou SN, Ioannou M, Stavrinides P. Int. J. Sch. Educ. Psychol. 2017; 5(4): 226-242.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/21683603.2016.1225237

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The current study examined the mediating role of children's locus of control in the relation between parenting styles and bully-victim experiences at school. Participants were 447 students aged 10 and 11 years old from 13 different elementary, urban, and rural schools in Cyprus. Analyses using structural equation modeling showed that parenting styles predict the development of these experiences differently. Specifically, authoritarian parenting is positively associated to bully-victim experiences at school, while authoritative parenting is negatively associated to the same variables. Furthermore, the findings indicated mediation effects, with locus of control being a full mediator in the relationship between authoritative parenting style and bully-victim experiences and a partial mediator in the relationship between authoritarian parenting style and bully-victim experiences at school. Nonrecursive reciprocal models confirmed the theoretically driven direction of the effect from parenting styles to bullying and victimization through the mechanism of locus of control. Multigroup analyses of invariance showed that gender moderated the mediation models for the authoritative and the authoritarian parenting styles.

Language: en

Keywords

bullying experiences; locus of control; mediation; parenting styles