title: Verbal abuse, gender and well-being at school.
abstract: The purpose was to assess the prevalence of students' experience of verbal abuse and its effects on school satisfaction and well-being from a gender perspective. Attention was paid to age differences.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study population consisted of all students in grades 6 and 8 in a Swedish city. A total of 1,006 students, ages 12-15, completed a self-administered questionnaire (response rate 84 percent).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Boys reported experiencing insults and threats to a greater extent, whereas girls more frequently experienced sexualized name-calling, specifically "whore". Both genders reported boys as perpetrators of verbal abuse most often. Further, girls generally reported lower levels of school satisfaction and well-being, while verbal abuse had a negative effect on the well-being of both genders.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Verbal abuse between students is a predominantly masculine practice, more pronounced among older students. It impacts negatively on the school satisfaction and well-being of both girls and boys and does not have to be frequent, repeated, or combined with other kinds of harassment to have this effect.
authors.affiliation: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden. miriam.eliasson@ali.se
authors.forename: Miriam A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Eliasson
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Laflamme
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Isaksson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000378:Agonistic Behavior; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012574:Schools; D012737:Sex Factors; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012919:Social Behavior; D012933:Social Identification; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D014505:Urban Population; D014705:Verbal Behavior