Exploring associations between school environment and bullying in Iran: Multilevel contextual effects modeling

School bullying is a major global public health problem that may associate with school factors. Few studies have been conducted in Middle East countries and in Iran about the association between the environmental characteristics of school and bullying victimization and perpetration. The Persian-OBQ and school environment scale of MDS3 Climate Survey was completed by 1540 Iranian students from 42 schools. This study examined the association of student perceptions about school environment both at the collective and individual level (including 4 dimensions: rules, physical comfort, support, and disorder) and the experience of involvement in bullying victimization, perpetration, and both of verbal, relational, physical, and cyber forms, using a contextual effect model in a two-level multinomial modeling. Results showed that higher individual-perception of physical comfort and support were related to lower levels of involvement in verbal, relational or cyber forms; and higher individual-perception of disorder was related to a greater level of involvement in verbal and relational forms. Whereas a higher collective-perception of rules, physical comfort, support, and disorder were related to a greater level of involvement in all forms, except the relational only-victim form. The implications of these results for building a supportive school environment are discussed.