Understanding school bullying: A general theory of crime and empirical findings

School Bullying is known as a serious globalized social phenomenon. Little research has been conducted to find out whether a criminological approach can explain school bullying, even though there are many similarities between school bullying and deviant behaviors. The current study uses a cross-sectional data of 296 students in two schools dominated by a Hispanic population to examine whether a general theory of crime can explain various types of school bullying (physical bullying, psychological bullying, coercive school bullying, and general bullying). Overall, the findings indicate that a low self-control is a significant predictor of various types of bullying behaviors, supporting the generalizability of a low self-control theory in explaining school bullying.