Child Development, July/August 2002, Volume 73, Number 4, Pages 1119–1133

Definitions of Bullying: A Comparison of Terms Used, and Age and Gender

Differences, in a Fourteen-Country International Comparison
Peter K. Smith, Helen Cowie, Ragnar F. Olafsson, and Andy P. D. Liefooghe

with the collaboration of Ana Almeida, Hozumi Araki, Cristina del Barrio, Angela Costabile,
Bojan Dekleva, Anastasia Houndoumadi, Kenneth Kim, Ragnar P. Olafsson,
Rosario Ortega, Jacques Pain, Lena Pateraki, Mechthild Schafer, Monika Singer,
Andrea Smorti, Yuichi Toda, Helgi Tomasson, and Zhang Wenxin

The study of school bullying has recently assumed an international dimension, but is faced with difficulties in
finding terms in different languages to correspond to the English word bullying. To investigate the meanings
given to various terms, a set of 25 stick-figure cartoons was devised, covering a range of social situations be-
tween peers. These cartoons were shown to samples of 8- and 14-year-old pupils (N  1,245; n  604 at 8 years,
n  641 at 14 years) in schools in 14 different countries, who judged whether various native terms cognate to
bullying, applied to them. Terms from 10 Indo-European languages and three Asian languages were sampled.
Multidimensional scaling showed that 8-year-olds primarily discriminated nonaggressive and aggressive car-
toon situations; however, 14-year-olds discriminated fighting from physical bullying, and also discriminated
verbal bullying and social exclusion. Gender differences were less appreciable than age differences. Based on
the 14-year-old data, profiles of 67 words were then constructed across the five major cartoon clusters. The
main types of terms used fell into six groups: bullying (of all kinds), verbal plus physical bullying, solely ver-
bal bullying, social exclusion, solely physical aggression, and mainly physical aggression. The findings are dis-
cussed in relation to developmental trends in how children understand bullying, the inferences that can be
made from cross-national studies, and the design of such studies.

INTRODUCTION ined the meaning attached to the term bullying, and

related terms, in 14 countries and 13 major languages
Since the publication of Olweus’s book Aggression in
(10 Indo-European, 3 Asiatic), as well as age and gen-
the Schools, in 1978, there has been a growing interest
der differences related to this issue.
in the topic of school bullying. Spreading from Scan-
dinavia to other western European countries, the
United States, and Australia and New Zealand, and The Definition of Bullying
with a somewhat independent research tradition in
Heinemann (1973) was one of the first to write on
Japan on ijime, the research and preventive action on
the phenomenon of bullying. He used the Norwegian
this phenomenon has now reached an international
term mobbning, referring to group violence against a
dimension (Smith, Morita, et al., 1999). Correspond-
deviant individual that occurs suddenly and subsides
ingly, there is a need to examine the use of the word
suddenly. This confines the process to actions carried
bullying and cognate terms in a variety of languages,
out by a group against an individual, as does the En-
at an international level, to understand fully the sim-
glish word mobbing. A similar use of the concept of
ilarities and differences in the phenomenon across
mobbing also appears in the German literature
different countries and language groups. In any cul-
(Niedl, 1996). Olweus (1978, 1993) at first used this
ture, the issue of definition is central for accurate sta-
term, but subsequently extended the definition to in-
tistics on the incidence of bullying; the study of devel-
clude systematic one-on-one attacks of a stronger
opmental changes in perceptions of bullying on the
child against a weaker child.
part of children, adolescents and adults; the evalua-
The emphasis of earlier work on bullying was on
tion of the effectiveness of different interventions to
physical bullying and verbal taunting done directly
combat it; and clarification of individual rights and
by the bully or bullies to the victim. Olweus’s earlier
legal responsibilities (Ananiadou & Smith, in press).
(1978) work did not fully recognize the extent of indi-
Because comparisons are attempted at cross-national
rect bullying. However, the importance of indirect
levels, the definition of corresponding terms in differ-
ent languages becomes essential for the interpretation © 2002 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
of cross-national findings. The present study exam- All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2002/7304-0009
1120 Child Development

aggression as a category was shown by the research inside a room, sent nasty notes, when no-one ever
of Björkqvist and colleagues (Björkqvist, Lagerspetz, talks to them and things like that. These things can
& Kaukiainen, 1992) in Finland. They distinguished happen frequently and it is difficult for the young
direct physical aggression (such as punching) and direct person being bullied to defend himself or herself. It
verbal aggression (such as name calling), as well as is also bullying when a young person is teased re-
indirect aggression. Indirect aggression, characterized peatedly in a nasty way. But it is not bullying when
by its somewhat covert nature and use of third par- two young people of about the same strength have
ties, had principal forms of gossiping and spreading the odd fight or quarrel.
rumors, and social exclusion (deliberately not allow-
This definition specifies that bullying is an aggres-
ing a person into a group). Somewhat similar (al-
sive act. In addition, it suggests an imbalance of
though not identical) concepts have been described
power (the victim finds it difficult to defend himself
by Crick and colleagues (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997;
or herself) and some element of repetition (these
Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, 1996) as relational aggres-
things can happen frequently). These two additional
sion, and by Galen and Underwood (1997) as social
criteria serve to distinguish bullying as a subset of the
aggression; these relate more to the consequences
broader concept of aggression. Notably, two sorts of
of the negative act and the intent to damage relation-
actions are labeled as not being bullying: the odd fight
ships. There are corresponding forms of physical,
or quarrel between two young people of about the
verbal, and indirect or relational bullying (Rivers &
same strength, which is aggression, is explicitly not
Smith, 1994).
bullying because it fails the above two additional cri-
Currently, Olweus (1999, pp. 10–11) states that
teria. The definition also implicitly labels friendly
“bullying is thus characterized by the following three
forms of teasing as not being bullying; teasing is a
criteria: (1) it is aggressive behavior or intentional
rather ambiguous behavior, but in friendly teasing
‘harmdoing’ (2) which is carried out repeatedly and
there would not be an intent to harm, whereas in
over time (3) in an interpersonal relationship charac-
nasty teasing there would be.
terized by an imbalance of power. One might add that
There is now widespread use of the Olweus ques-
the bullying behavior often occurs without apparent
tionnaire, and similar survey instruments, on an in-
provocation,” and “negative actions can be carried
ternational basis (Morita, Smith, Junger-Tas, Olweus,
out by physical contact, by words, or in other ways,
& Catalano, 1999; Smith et al., 1999). A modified ver-
such as making faces or mean gestures, and inten-
sion has been used in a cross-national comparative
tional exclusion from a group.” This kind of defini-
survey of five countries (Japan, England, The Nether-
tion of the term bullying is now accepted by many re-
lands, Norway, and the United States) funded by the
searchers (Farrington, 1993; Smith & Sharp, 1994).
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Such a definition labels bullying as a subset of ag-
Organization (UNESCO) and the Japanese Ministry
gressive behavior. Aggressive behavior, in turn, is
of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture (Mon-
often defined as negative acts carried out intention-
busho; Junger-Tas & van Kesteren, 1999; Morita, 1999;
ally to harm another; thus, behavior that accidentally
Smith & Shu, 2000). One aim of such international co-
harms another would not be aggressive. The issue of
operation is to compare the frequency and structural
whether the aggressive behavior is provoked, or in
characteristics of bullying in different societies, to bet-
some sense justified, is less clearly resolved. Olweus
ter understand and then plan interventions to reduce
stated that “the bullying behavior often occurs with-
the harmful consequences that bullying can have.
out apparent provocation,” but some researchers (no-
tably Pikas, 1989) have suggested that there is a cate-
gory of “provocative victims” who play an active part
The Implications of Cross-National Research
in “inviting” or “perpetuating” the bullying behavior.
on Bullying
An earlier form of the Olweus definition (1993), ex-
tended slightly by Whitney and Smith (1993, p. 7) in A difficulty facing cross-national comparisons is
their English language version, prefaces the adminis- the comparability of terminology. Arora (1996) drew
tration of recent versions of his questionnaire: attention to the various terms cognate with bullying
in English and in several other languages. The study
We say a young person is being bullied, or picked of bullying in a number of different countries indi-
on, when another child or young person, or a cates that the word bully is not easy to translate
group of young people, say nasty and unpleasant (Genta, Menesini, Fonzi, Costabile, & Smith, 1996;
things to him or her. It is also bullying when a Morita, 1996; O’Connell, Pepler, & Craig, 1999; Rigby
young person is hit, kicked or threatened, locked & Slee, 1991). Different terms are used both in any one

language and in different languages. The terms bully
and mobbing are familiar in the Scandinavian and
Germanic languages, including English (the etymol-
ogy of the word bully probably coming from the Mid-
dle Dutch word boele meaning first sweetheart, then
fine fellow, then blusterer; Encarta World English Dic-
tionary, 1999). The word bully is familiar in other
English-speaking cultures such as the United States,
although less widely used (Hazler, 1996); in the
United States the terms victimization and peer rejec-
tion are often used to denote negative actions of peers
toward another young person (Asher & Coie, 1990).
Words for bullying are less familiar in the Latin lan-
guages; for example, the French have no direct trans-
lation of the word.
The importance of the terms used can be illustrated
within one language, English. The terms bully and
bullying have been in usage for a long time, to de-
scribe this kind of behavior in children at school (as in
Tom Brown’s Schooldays; Hughes, 1857/1989). The
term teasing is similar but can have a milder connota-
tion of verbal and possibly playful aggression. An-
other term, harassment, appears similar to bullying
but tends to be used for adult or adolescent rather
than child behaviors, as in sexual harassment, or ra-
cial harassment. Yet another term, abuse, also appears
similar but tends to be restricted to the family context,
as in parent–child abuse or spousal abuse, or to adult–
child contexts, as in physical abuse or sexual abuse.
These terms have somewhat different dictionary def-
initions and, more importantly, they may be under-
stood differently by persons answering questionnaires.
This issue is also highlighted when questionnaires
such as the Olweus questionnaire are translated into
different languages. Frequently there is not an exact
translation of the term bullying. The Japanese term
most equivalent to bullying appears to be ijime, which
has been the subject of a rather independent research
tradition in Japan, through the 1980s and 1990s
(Morita, Soeda, Soeda, & Taki, 1999). However, Morita,
Soeda, et al. (1999) consider that ijime does differ
somewhat from bullying, in having a less physically
violent connotation, and a relatively greater emphasis
on social manipulation and more female types of ag-
gressive behavior. In contrast, in Italy, the Italian
words prepotenza and violenza tend to imply more
physical, violent actions (Fonzi et al., 1999).
The issue of comparability of terms is central for the
accurate interpretation of national and cross-national
findings. Exact matching of terms across languages is
an unrealizable ideal, but it is necessary to know how
comparable terms are, and, if they differ, on which
dimensions or criteria (e.g., physical/psychological,
direct/indirect, group/individual, and so forth) the
Smith et al. 1121
difference is primarily located. Even if a fuller explicit
definition is given (as in the Olweus questionnaire),
the favored term (bullying, ijime, prepotenza, and so
forth) is used throughout the questionnaire, and in
summaries and wider discussion; and respondents to
the questionnaire may well refer to their personal def-
inition of this term rather than that given early on by
the researcher (Arora, 1996; Madsen, 1997).
In the present study’s comparison of the meaning
of different terms, the intention was not to “privilege”
any particular term or language, but rather to show
the kinds of situational meanings attributed to each
term. However, given a current strong position of En-
glish language in scientific discourse, and the wide-
spread use of the term bullying (including its co-
option as, e.g., bullismo in Italian; Fonzi, 1997), there
may be particular interest in comparing other lan-
guage terms for their similarity/dissimilarity to the
English term bullying.
Such information is also important for the study of
developmental changes in perceptions of bullying.
There is evidence for developmental differences in
the ways in which pupils construe bullying (Madsen,
1997; Smith & Levan, 1995; Smith, Madsen, & Moody,
1999). Younger pupils may not distinguish between
bullying and fighting, broadening the use of the term
bullying to cover nasty kinds of behavior even when
no imbalance of power is involved. Younger, Schwartz-
man, and Ledingham (1985) compared children’s per-
ceptions of aggression, withdrawal, and likability
items in Canadian children approximately 6, 9, and 12
years of age. Using multidimensional scaling (MDS)
techniques, they found a shift with age from a simple
evaluative dimension and low cohesiveness of clus-
ters (high structure ratios in the MDS) to a more com-
plex separation of clusters with an additional active–
passive dimension, and higher within-cluster item
cohesiveness (lower structure ratios).
It is also possible that there are gender differences
in perceptions of bullying and related terms. This is
an issue, given the well-established gender differ-
ences found in the use of direct and indirect or phys-
ical and psychological forms of aggression, including
bullying (Björkqvist et al., 1992; Crick & Grotpeter,
1995, 1996; Rivers & Smith, 1994). Although little evi-
dence has been found thus far for gender differences
in the understanding of aggression and bullying
(Madsen, 1997), as opposed to their use, the possibil-
ity of them emerging should be investigated.
Aims of the Present Study
This study examined the understanding of a variety
of terms cognate to bullying, in 14 countries, includ-
1122 Child Development
ing 13 major languages. Understanding was opera-
tionalized in terms of applicability of a selection of 25
stick-figure cartoons that displayed situations that
might or might not be bullying, based on various
well-used criteria. Age differences were examined by
giving the task to primary school children (8 years of
age) and secondary school children (14 years of age);
samples were balanced for gender to also allow for
male–female comparisons.
METHOD
The Cartoons Task
We first developed a series of 25 stick-figure car-
toon pictures (see Table 1) that illustrated different sit-
uations that might or might not be bullying, based on
elements used in existing definitions of bullying
(Smith, 1999). Most of the cartoons portrayed nega-
tive acts; however, two prosocial cartoons (10, 18)
were included. Two other nonaggressive cartoons
were paired with corresponding aggressive ones: one
(8) showed a negative but accidental act and was con-
trasted with one (9) in which a similar act was inten-
tional; the other (16) showed friendly verbal teasing
and was contrasted with one (17) that depicted simi-
lar teasing that upset the recipient. One cartoon (4) re-
ferred to provoked aggression. The remaining car-
toons covered physical forms of aggression (1–7),
direct verbal aggression (11–15), social exclusion ag-
gression (19–23), and indirect relational aggression
(24, 25); however, embedded in these were compari-
sons of the defining criteria of bullying, namely repe-
tition and imbalance of power. Thus, repetition was
made explicit in some cartoons (5, 12, 20), and imbal-
ance of power in others (3, 7, 21). Themes such as rac-
ism (13), sexism (22, 23), and discrimination on the
basis of disability (14) or sexual orientation (15) were
also included.
The cartoons were piloted extensively before the
set was finalized. Stick figures were used so as to
avoid issues of clothing, which might vary by culture,
and to avoid suggesting any particular ethnic group
or skin color. Thus, identical pictures were used
across all cultures. Each cartoon had a caption in the
native language, as listed in Table 1 for the English
language version (boys). In each language, one set of
cartoons had captions with typical boys’ names in the
country concerned, and a corresponding set had cap-
tions with typical girls’ names; cartoons 22 and 23
were in common to both gender sets. Examples of
four cartoons (3 and 10 from the boys’ set, 14 and 21
from the girls’ set) are shown in Figure 1.
The cartoon captions were descriptive (see Table 1)
Table 1 Captions for the 25 Cartoons (Male Version)
1. Mike and John don’t like each other and start to fight
2. Bill starts a fight with Joey
3. Martin starts to fight with Akhtar, who is smaller
4. Sean starts a fight with Ron because he said Sean was stupid
5. Chris starts a fight with Damien every break time
6. David tells Scott that if he doesn’t give him money, he will hit
him
7. Nick and his friends start to fight Terry
8. Nigel borrows Duncan’s ruler and accidentally breaks it
9. Harry takes Ian’s ruler and breaks it
10. Jim forgot his pen so Kirk lends him one of his
11. Kurt says nasty things to Ben
12. Charles says nasty things to Marcus every week
13. Stuart says nasty things to Jeff about the color of his skin
(alternate caption if color of skin is not an important factor
in the culture: Stuart says nasty things to Jeff about his
talking in a different way)
14. Joshua has a bad leg and must use a stick, Carl says nasty
things to him about it
15. George says nasty things to Derek about his sexual orientation
16. Ken makes fun of Graham’s hair, they both laugh
17. Anthony makes fun about Stan’s hair, Stan is upset
18. Mick asks Richard if he would like to play
19. Matt won’t let Lenny play today
20. Sebastian never lets Rob play
21. Henry and his friends won’t let Ray play with them
22. The girls won’t let Mark skip with them because he’s a boy
23. The boys won’t let Karen play football because she’s a girl
24. Gerry tells everyone not to talk to Guy
25. Bill spreads nasty stories about Alan
and avoided use of any general terms such as bully-
ing. The English captions constituted a reference set.
In each other country, a researcher translated these
captions into the main native language as used by
participants in the task. These captions were then
back-translated into English by another person, and
returned to the first author in London, who then
checked them against the original versions and dis-
cussed any discrepancies until these were resolved.
All 25 cartoons were used identically in all 14
countries, with the exception of cartoons 13 and 15. If
color of skin was not an important factor in a culture,
an alternate caption about saying nasty things about a
child talking in a different way was used for cartoon
13. In addition, in some countries permission was not
readily forthcoming from schools to use cartoon 15,
which was on sexual orientation (usually with 8-year-
olds, but occasionally with 14-year-olds as well); thus,
the cartoon was omitted from the main cross-national
analyses.
General Procedure
Researchers in all 14 countries followed an agreed-
on three-step procedure.

Figure 1 Examples of four of the cartoons: Numbers 3 and 10 from the boys’ set, and 14 and 21 from the girls’ set.
Step 1: List and select terms for bullying and social ex-
clusion in the relevant language. Likely terms to use in
the investigation were taken from dictionaries and
thesauruses, questionnaires on bullying translated
into the language, and research and popular writings
on the topic. Some 5 to 10 terms were then chosen, on
the basis of meaning and applicability across the
country/culture, to proceed to Step 2.
Step 2: Use focus groups with children to check on usage
and broad understanding of terms. At least two focus
groups were held, each consisting of at least four (usu-
ally more) 8-year-olds and four (usually more) 14-year-
olds. The ostensible aim for the participants was to
generate words that were currently used to describe
antisocial/aggressive behaviors and situations at
school. To engage participants in debate, a subset of
the cartoons was employed as stimulus materials. For
the purposes of the study, the aim was to ensure that
terms selected for Step 3 were spontaneously used by
some participants, and were broadly familiar to most
participants.
Smith et al. 1123
It was recognized that this work could not often be
done on a varied sample across different sites in a
country (although some research teams did use two
sites). However, dialect terms that sometimes ap-
peared, but were local to a region within a country,
were not selected for Step 3.
The intention was to end up with four to six terms
for Step 3. Often, more terms were used and under-
stood by 14-year-olds than 8-year-olds. In such cases,
all terms were used with the 14-year-old sample, but
only the subset of those terms that were understood
by 8-year-olds were used with the younger sample. As
an example from the English data, pilot work and focus
groups with children established that relevant terms in
English, besides bullying, included teasing, picking on,
tormenting, harassment, and intimidation. All these
terms were used and understood by 14-year-olds.
However, only bullying, teasing, and picking on were
readily understood by 8-year-olds, and thus only
these three terms were used with this age group.
Step 3: Sorting task using cartoons to delineate ways in
1124 Child Development
which these terms are used. The work was carried out
in school settings, with children withdrawn from
class on an individual basis (for all 8-year-olds; in
some countries the 14-year-old data were obtained on
a class basis). Of the terms selected for investigation,
each was taken in turn. Children were shown or given
the cartoons, with the researcher also reading the cap-
tion in the case of 8-year-olds. Gender-appropriate
cartoon sets were used. For each term, children were
required to either include or exclude each cartoon in
their definition of the term with which they were pre-
sented. This was done by sorting them in a pile under
the heading: “this is X” or “this is not X” (where X was
the term being currently considered); or, in class pre-
sentation with older children, by checking a standard
score sheet appropriately. The procedure was repeated
until all terms were investigated. The captions were
given in the order shown in Table 1. This was done to
maximize consistency across cultures, and to give a
“narrative” line to the task, as children moved through
physical, verbal, and more indirect/relational scenar-
ios. The possible drawback of order effects was recog-
nized, but pilot work suggested that a random order
was more confusing for the children to follow.
Participants
The sorting task in Step 3 was given to a minimum
of 20 boys and 20 girls each at 8 years and 14 years of
age (total N  1,245; n  604 at 8 years, n  641 at 14
years). They were selected from schools that were
deemed reasonably representative of the education
system in that country; that is, they were not drawn
from extreme groups in terms of academic ability, or
socioeconomic status. In all cases there were nearly
equal numbers of boys and girls at each age group
(exactly equal unless stated). Sample sizes are shown
in Table 2, together with the district of the country
from which they were recruited via local schools.
Table 2 also shows the number of terms used for both
8-year-olds and 14-year-olds (only one term was
available from the French team; due to a misunder-
standing of instructions they chose the one term most
similar to bullying, from those terms used in the focus
groups with French pupils).
RESULTS
SPSS 10.0 for Windows was used for statistical purposes.
Structure of Responses to the Cartoons
The percentage of participants who included each
of the 24 cartoons (cartoon 15 was excluded, see
Method section) as part of their “definition” of each
term was computed. The similarity or difference be-
tween any two cartoons could be assessed by com-
paring their percentage profiles. This permitted an
analysis of the structure of the cartoon set, over all re-
spondents. To this end, MDS was conducted, using
datasets from all 14 countries.1
Genders were combined, but analyses were sepa-
rated for the 8- and 14-year-olds, using the 47 terms
that were common to both age groups so that the two
age groups could be compared on the same set of
terms. Scores were averaged for each country before
aggregating (correcting for minor differences in sample
size). The MDS was run on SPSS, minimizing Young’s
stress. No transformations were carried out. The
Manhattan proximity measure was employed to cre-
ate a single distance matrix between cartoons, the dis-
tance between two items being the sum of the abso-
lute differences between the values (percentages) for
the items (cartoons). The matrix is square symmetric.
An ordinal MDS model was specified, using Kruskal’s
(1964a, 1964b) least squares monotonic transforma-
tion. The Euclidean distance model was used. The
Kruskal stress values (Formula 1) for one-, two-, three-,
and four-dimensional solutions, respectively, were
.08, .05, .03, and .01 for 8-year-olds; and .14, .08, .03,
and .02 for 14-year-olds. These low values suggested
two-dimensional solutions were adequate for both
age groups. The MDS solutions for each age group are
shown in Figures 2 and 3.
The MDS solutions for the 8- and 14-year-olds, re-
spectively, were similar in overall structure; both
showed on Dimension 1 (horizontal axis in figures)
those cartoons that were not aggressive (prosocial,
friendly teasing, accidental damage) at one end (left-
hand side of figures) and cartoons of increasing ag-
gression toward the other end (right-hand side of fig-
ures), whereas the second dimension (vertical axis in
figures) opposed physical cartoons (bottom of fig-
ures) and verbal and social exclusion cartoons (top of
figures). The somewhat lower stress value for the 8-
year-olds (.05) indicates a better fit, and a simpler
structure, than for the 14-year-olds (.08). This is seen
1 Multidimensional scaling attempts to find the structure in a
set of distance measures between objects or cases. This is accom-
plished by assigning items to specific locations in a conceptual
space (usually two or three dimensional) such that the distances
between the points in space match the given dissimilarities as
closely as possible. Points are arranged so that similar items are
represented by points that are close together (proximities) and
dissimilar items are represented by points that are far apart. The
stress value of an MDS solution shows the degree of fit within
the number of dimensions used, with smaller stress values
meaning a better fit.
 Smith et al. 1125

Table 2 Details of the Samples, and Number of Terms Used, in each of 14 Countries

Number of Number of Number of Number of

Pupils at 8 Pupils at 14 Terms at 8 Terms at 14
Country Language Years Years Years Years District of Sample

Austria South Germanic 40 40 3 4 Styria (southeast) and Lower Austria (northeast)

China Mandarin Chinese 50 50 2 7 Capital city of Shandong province, eastern
coastal area
England English 40 40 3 6 London area
France French 40 40 1 1 Paris area
Germany German 43 (22 boys, 51 (26 boys, 3 4 Munich area in southern Germany
21 girls) 25 girls)
Greece Greek 40 40 2 3 Athens and Ioannina in northwest Greece
Iceland Icelandic 40 40 5 6 Reykjavik area
Italy Italian 40 40 7 7 Crema and Cremona, northern Italy
Japan Japanese 51 (25 boys, 70 (37 boys, 3 5 Tottori and Tokyo, on main island of Honshu
26 girls) 33 girls)
Norway Norwegian 40 40 2 4 Trondheim area, middle coastal region of
Norway
Portugal Portuguese 40 40 6 6 Braga area in north Portugal
Slovenia Slovenian 40 40 2 6 Ljubljana area
Spain Spanish 60 60 5 5 Seville (south Spain) and Madrid (central Spain)
Thailand Thai 40 50 3 3 Rural area near Lampang in north Thailand

also by comparing Figures 2 and 3; the cartoons are

bunched more closely in Figure 2, and are more
spread out and differentiated in Figure 3. Although
older children were using the same two dimensions
to classify the cartoons, a greater level of differentia-
tion was apparent; for example, the social exclusion
items (19, 22, 23) were more clearly separated from
the verbal items in this age group compared with the
8-year-olds.
Hierarchical cluster analyses2 were conducted on
the same percentage profile data as the MDS solu-
tions to identify distinct groups of cartoons. Ward’s
method was used to combine clusters. The distance
matrix between cartoons was based on Euclidean dis-
Figure 2 Multidimensional scaling solution of cartoon struc-
tance. These analyses further indicated a greater ca-
ture for 8-year-olds.
pacity of the 14-year-olds to differentiate meaning in
the cartoons. At the same level of distinctness, the so-
lution for the 8-year-olds produced only two clusters,
whereas the solution for the 14-year-olds showed five
clusters. The solution for the 8-year-olds distin-
guished between the nonaggressive cartoons (8, 10,
16, 18) on the one hand and the aggressive cartoons
(all the rest) on the other. The five clusters produced

2 Hierarchical cluster analysis attempts to identify relatively

homogeneous groups of variables, using an algorithm that starts

with each variable in a separate cluster and combines clusters
until only one is left. By relating this to MDS, clusters can be
mapped onto the MDS configuration in an attempt to identify
common dimensions. Thus, the co-occurrence of items can be
examined at the same time as the underlying dimensions on Figure 3 Multidimensional scaling solution of cartoon struc-
which they are arranged. ture for 14-year-olds.
1126 Child Development
Figure 4 Multidimensional scaling solution of cartoon struc-
ture for boys.
by the 14-year-olds, however, were nonaggressive (8,
10, 16, 18), social exclusion (19, 20, 21, 22, 23), verbal:
directindirect (11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 24, 25; and nine
placed more distantly), physical aggression (1, 4), and
physical bullying (2, 3, 5, 6, 7).
Gender Differences
An analysis of the structure of the cartoons, in both
MDS (corresponding to Figures 2 and 3) and hierar-
chical cluster analysis solutions, was carried out sep-
arately for boys and girls. For this purpose, data
from 8- and 14-year-olds were combined, and the anal-
yses were run on 45 terms used by both age groups,
from 13 countries (Norway was not included because
labeling by gender had been omitted in data collec-
tion). The Kruskal stress values for one-, two-,
three- and four-dimensional solutions, respectively,
were .12, .07, .03, and .01 for males; and .09, .05, .03,
and .02 for females. These low values indicated that
two-dimensional solutions were adequate for both
genders.
The MDS solutions for both genders are shown in
Figures 4 and 5. The overall structures were very sim-
ilar; and, as described for Figures 2 and 3, the hori-
zontal axis discriminated prosocial from aggressive
cartoons, and the vertical axis opposed physical
(bottom of figures) and verbal (middle of figures)
aggression from social exclusion (top of figures).
To establish the extent of similarity more objec-
tively, two hierarchical cluster analyses were con-
ducted, one for each gender, on the same data used in
the MDS solutions above. The specifications followed
were identical to those used for the earlier age com-
parisons. At the level of getting a five-cluster solution
as discussed above, configurations were very similar.
Figure 5 Multidimensional scaling solution of cartoon struc-
ture for girls.
For both genders, there were clusters of nonaggres-
sive (8, 10, 16, 18), social exclusion (19, 20, 21, 22, 23),
and physical aggression (1, 4); both genders also had
clusters of verbal:directindirect (11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 24,
25), and physical bullying (2, 3, 5, 6, 7), with the only
difference being that cartoon 9 (nonaccidentally
breaking a ruler) was included in the physical bully-
ing cluster for boys, but in the verbal:directindirect
cluster for girls.
Comparison of Terms on the Cartoon
Cluster Structure
To compare terms on the cartoon cluster structure,
a similar cluster analysis to that described above was
used, but was based on data for all 67 terms defined
by 14-year-olds, and not just the 47 also used by the
8-year-olds. This cluster analysis produced the same
five main clusters, and a plot very similar to that
shown in Figure 3: a nonaggressive cluster (8, 10, 16,
18) that included two prosocial items, plus friendly
teasing and accidental damage; a social exclusion
cluster (19, 20, 21, 22, 23) that included the five so-
cial exclusion cartoons; a verbal:directindirect
cluster (9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 24, 25) that included the
verbal cartoons, plus nasty teasing, and the two in-
direct verbal cartoons, together with the accidental
damage cartoon (9), which was intermediate between
this cluster (where it technically fell) and the phys-
ical bullying cluster (see Figure 3); a physical ag-
gression cluster (1, 4) that included the two physi-
cal cartoons that most clearly did not fit a definition
of bullying—an even-handed dispute and a pro-
voked retaliation; and a physical bullying cluster
(2, 3, 5, 6, 7) that generally implied some repetition
or power imbalance.

The above clusters were used to simplify the mean-
ing profiles of the 67 terms. A mean percentage score
was computed for each term on each cluster. The
meaning of each term could thus be expressed in 5
percentage scores, instead of 25. The outcome is pre-
sented in Table 3. The range of scores for each cluster
was 0 to 100. For example (taking the fourth line in
Table 3), the term angreifen was only applied in 3% of
responses to the nonaggressive cartoons (i.e., aver-
aged over these four cartoons individually), and only
7% of the social exclusion and 11% of the verbal bul-
lying cartoons, but it was applied to 74% of the phys-
ical aggression cartoons, and 83% of the physical bul-
lying cartoons; this indicates that the term angreifen
is used for physical aggression and bullying but
not for nonphysical forms. As expected, none of the
terms scored highly on the nonaggressive cluster;
however, there was considerable variation in weight-
ing on the other four clusters, which showed differ-
ences in meaning—sometimes obvious, sometimes
more subtle.
Conceptual Structure of Terms Used
in Different Languages
For each term, the percentage of participants who
included each of the 24 cartoons as part of their “def-
inition” of that term was computed. The meaning of
each term was operationalized with regard to the
mean percentage for the cartoons in each of the five
clusters. The similarity or difference in meaning be-
tween any two terms could be assessed by comparing
their percentage profiles across the five clusters. This
permitted a comparison of the meaning of the terms
across languages and cultures.
To examine similarities and differences in their
meanings, MDS was first conducted on all 67 terms
for the 14-year-olds. The specifications for the analy-
sis were identical to those applied in the earlier MDS
analyses, except that in this case, a distance matrix
was computed between terms instead of between car-
toons as was done in the earlier analyses. Stress
values for one- to four-dimensional solutions were,
respectively, .34, .18, .09, and .06. This suggests that a
three-dimensional solution was needed. Examining
this, the first dimension opposed the aggressive and
the nonaggressive terms, the second dimension op-
posed the physical and social exclusion terms, and
the third dimension differentiated the verbal and
social exclusion terms. Because a three-dimensional
solution is difficult to visualize or portray, a hierachi-
cal cluster analysis was conducted to aid the identifi-
cation of subgroups of terms. The specifications for
the analysis were identical to those used before, with
Smith et al. 1127
the distance matrix computed between terms. Six
main groups or clusters were identified (see Figure 6).
The clusters can be interpreted by referring back to
Table 3, where the “meaning” of each term (with re-
gard to the cartoons) can be inferred.
The first cluster consisted of 19 terms, which were
generally higher on the physical bullying, verbal,
and social exclusion clusters than on the physical ag-
gression cluster; thus, these terms tended to be clos-
est to the definition of bullying, and did indeed in-
clude the English term bullying, as well as the term
picking on.
The second cluster consisted of six terms, which
scored most highly on the social exclusion cluster.
The third cluster had seven terms; these all scored
much more highly on the verbal:directindirect
cluster than on the physical bullying or social exclu-
sion clusters. The English term teasing appeared in
this cluster.
The fourth cluster had 19 terms; these were weighted
most highly on the verbal:directindirect cluster, but
moderately on the physical bullying cluster, and less
on the social exclusion cluster. The English terms ha-
rassment, intimidation, and tormenting appeared in
this cluster.
The fifth cluster contained three items, which were
only weighted highly on physical aggression and
physical bullying. The sixth cluster had 13 items,
which loaded highest on either the physical aggres-
sion or the physical bullying cluster, but moderately
on one or two other aggressive clusters.
Corresponding terms from different languages
were not necessarily close together; thus, although
different countries did contribute different numbers
of terms to the analyses (range, 1–7; see Tables 2 and
3) there was no reason to suppose that this had af-
fected the cluster structure obtained. For example, the
four terms used in Austria all fell in different clus-
ters (Table 3, Figure 6): gemein sein in the bullying
cluster, sekkieren in the verbal cluster, ärgern in the ver-
bal  physical cluster, and angreifen in the physical
only cluster.
Figure 6 shows that the initial bifurcation of clus-
ters of terms was between the “physical” terms (Clus-
ters 5 and 6) and the rest. Clusters 5 and 6 effectively
included terms corresponding to violence (such as
Portuguese violência, Italian violenza). The next split
was to separate out the bullying terms (Cluster 1)
from those that referred more specifically to verbal
and social exclusion (Clusters 2, 3 and 4). The third
split separated social exclusionary terms in Cluster 2
(such as Portuguese rejeição) from the verbal terms
(Clusters 3 and 4). The fourth split led to the six clus-
ters described above.
1128 Child Development

Table 3 Mean Percentage of 14-Year-Olds Who Included the Cartoons in Each Cluster as Part of Their Definition of that Term

Verbal:Direct
Nonaggressive Physical Aggression Physical Bullying Indirect Social Exclusion

Austria
A1: sekkieren 16 40 51 73 34
A2: ärgern 21 56 60 85 58
A3: gemein sein 23 65 78 94 90
A4: angreifen 3 74 83 11 7
China (romanized terms)
C1: lingru 2 28 57 71 51
C2: qifu 3 13 94 85 68
C3: qiling 2 25 82 72 52
C4: qiru 2 22 79 80 53
C5: qiwu 2 23 67 89 58
C6: qiya 3 17 85 55 60
C7: wuru 2 24 39 84 45
England
E1: bullying 4 34 94 91 62
E2: harassment 10 42 88 84 49
E3: teasing 15 43 35 83 51
E4: intimidation 7 42 78 82 46
E5: tormenting 14 59 76 84 64
E6: picking on 8 39 95 96 67
France
F1: violence 3 56 83 60 26
Germany
GE1: ärgern 7 85 61 65 46
GE2: angreifen 2 89 91 72 30
GE3: gemein sein 4 28 85 93 85
GE4: schikanieren 6 20 58 80 55
Greece
G1: kano to magha 8 40 84 70 65
G2: miono 10 70 74 85 78
G3: taleporo 13 76 92 85 75
Iceland
IS1: radast a 3 71 95 42 25
IS2: hrekkja 9 40 75 88 60
IS3: skilja ut undan 1 4 12 27 97
IS4: strida 13 41 52 90 64
IS5: taka fyrir 4 31 81 73 65
IS6: einelti 4 11 86 81 75
Italy
IT1: aggressività 10 91 96 68 63
IT2: fare il duro 12 68 80 74 72
IT3: prepotenza 10 71 92 86 90
IT4: violenza 10 93 96 63 59
IT5: approffitarse 12 48 82 84 75
IT6: cattiveria 11 75 96 91 86
IT7: scorretto 15 85 94 93 89
Japan
J1: ijime 4 9 50 87 39
J2: ijiwaru 8 27 56 94 56
J3: iyagarase 8 30 56 97 43
J4: fuzake 27 26 38 56 19
J5: nakamahazushi 4 8 29 55 65
Norway
N1: erting 18 29 28 67 36
N2: mobbing 6 17 46 70 39
N3: plaging 11 35 81 77 58
N4: krangling 9 88 45 22 18
(Continued)
 Smith et al. 1129

Table 3 Mean
Continued
Percentage of 14-Year-Olds Who Included the Cartoons in Each Cluster as Part of Their Definition of that Term

Verbal:Direct
Nonaggressive Physical Aggression Physical Bullying Indirect Social Exclusion

Portugal
P1: abuso 3 10 71 55 30
P2: armar-se 1 18 72 56 75
P3: insulto 4 35 17 58 20
P4: provoção 3 60 69 78 44
P5: rejeição 1 8 38 54 81
P6: violência 1 18 74 24 16
Slovenia
SL1: nadlegovanje 13 51 89 67 42
SL2: nasilništvo 6 88 96 48 33
SL3: trpinčenje 7 58 93 75 65
SL4: ustrahovanje 4 45 79 49 31
SL5: zavračanje 7 43 54 66 92
SL6: zlorabljanje 4 40 84 59 49
Spain
S1: maltrato 8 49 96 85 65
S2: meterse con 15 66 63 86 40
S3: rechazo 6 28 42 81 96
S4: abuso 5 21 86 75 58
S5: egoismo 6 21 54 66 94
Thailand
T1: nisai mai dee 15 77 79 81 69
T2: klang 19 32 64 86 67
T3: tum raai 10 38 76 61 48

Note: The five clusters consist of the following cartoons: nonaggressive (8, 10, 16, 18), physical aggression (1, 4), physical bullying (2, 3, 5,
6, 7), verbal:directindirect (9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 24, 25), and social exclusion (19, 20, 21, 22, 23).

DISCUSSION many countries (Table 2), and although the terms

The cartoon methodology used in the present study
generally proved successful; children appeared to en-
joy the task and it held their attention. This was facil-
itated by the narrative line used in the sequence, be-
cause often one feature was changed at a time. The
danger of this technique is the possibility of order ef-
fects; however, these were not apparent in the results.
For example, the social exclusion cartoons near the
end (19–23) were clearly treated differently than other
items, including the last two (24, 25). The two pro-
social cartoons (10, 18), although separated by seven
other cartoons, were scored almost identically (Fig-
ures 2 and 3).
As predicted, the results indicated that 8-year-olds
had a less differentiated understanding of terms than
did the 14-year-olds. Overall, the lack of differentia-
tion between the cartoons for the 8-year-olds (two
clusters versus five for the 14-year-olds) suggests a
relatively limited ability in this younger age group to
differentiate the situations presented in the cartoons,
by means of the terms presented to them. The age
comparison was based on the same 47 terms. How-
ever, the 14-year-olds had a wider choice of terms in
shared with 8-year-olds were usually presented first,
this was not invariably done; it is conceivable that the
larger number of terms available to many 14-year-
olds assisted their differentiation. It is also possible
that younger children might have differentiated more
on a free-sorting task with the cartoons, rather than a
verbal labeling task, as was used in this study. How-
ever, the present finding is consistent with that of
Younger et al. (1985, 1986), who also used MDS tech-
niques and found a progressive differentiation in 6-,
9-, and 12-year-olds’ perceptions of classmates in
terms of aggression, likeability, and withdrawal.
The present study’s findings (Figures 2 and 3) sug-
gest that at 8 years, children still primarily contrast
aggressive and nonaggressive scenarios, but do not
distinguish so clearly between different forms of ag-
gression (physical aggression, physical bullying, ver-
bal aggression, and social exclusion). This is in line
with the finding in a study by Smith and Levan (1995)
with 6-year-olds, that bullying and fighting are not
clearly distinguished in young children. Figure 2 does
show some separation between physical aggression
and bullying (above the horizontal axis) and verbal
plus social exclusionary aggression (below the hori-
1130 Child Development
Figure 6 Cluster analysis of 67 terms as used by 14-year-olds.
zontal axis), but this separation is not as significant at
8 years as it is at 14 years. Also, the 8-year-olds did not
appear to so clearly separate physical aggression and
physical bullying as did the 14-year-olds (Clusters 2
and 3), nor did they so clearly separate verbal aggres-
sion and social exclusion as did the 14-year-olds
(Clusters 4 and 5). This lesser discrimination of types
of bullying by 8-year-olds might be due to the fact
that they experience physical bullying more than the
verbal or social exclusionary forms (rather than being
due to cognitive limitations). However, although
physical forms are more common in younger chil-
dren, verbal bullying and social exclusion are cer-
tainly not infrequent at this age (Genta et al., 1996;
Whitney & Smith, 1993), or even younger ages (Crick
et al., 1997); thus, an explanation linked to experience
is considered unlikely.
The 14-year-olds clearly discriminated the differ-
ent cartoons in more detail. It is nevertheless interest-
ing that the two indirect relational cartoons (24 and
25) did not begin to form a separate cluster, but were
fully integrated with the other direct verbal aggres-
sion items (11–15). It would be interesting to see if
adults separate these two clusters more clearly; re-
searchers (Björkqvist et al., 1992; Crick et al., 1997;
Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, 1996) have distinguished
these as two separate kinds of aggression.
The age differences in the present study were gen-
erally found to be consistent in the different countries,
when this was explored on individual country data.
The lesser differentiation of terms by younger chil-
dren raises important issues in the measurement of
bullying (Smith & Levan, 1995). There is a possibility
that the higher reported rates of victimization often
found in younger children are due to a more inclusive
understanding of the term bullying, which does not
delineate it as only a subset of aggression. Examining
this possibility in relation to the large-scale survey
studies using the Olweus questionnaire, Smith, Mad-
sen, and Moody (1999) concluded that the more inclu-
sive understanding of bullying by younger children
(up to 8 years) was probably an important factor in
the high rates of bullying and victimization often re-
ported by these age groups.
The present study also examined gender differ-
ences in the clustering of terms, by running analyses
(Figures 4 and 5) separately for each gender. There
was little difference in the configurations of cartoons
in the MDS solutions, and the cluster analysis pro-
duced almost identical cluster structure at the five-
solution level (with just one cartoon, 9, being in a dif-
ferent cluster for boys than for girls). We concluded
that there were no large gender differences in the un-
derstanding of the kinds of social situations depicted
in the cartoon set. This is consistent with other studies
on the definition of bullying (Madsen, 1997; Smith &
Levan, 1995), which suggests that although boys and
girls differ in the kinds of bullying they give and re-
ceive (Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, & Peltonen, 1988), at
any particular age they share a common understand-
ing of what the terms mean. Even though boys may

directly experience more physical bullying, and girls
may experience more indirect bullying, there is con-
siderable overlap. In addition, both boys and girls are
likely to observe a considerable amount of bullying
involving both same-sex and opposite-sex children
(O’Connell et al., 1999).
The cartoon methodology allowed for the ability to
compare 67 terms from 14 countries, with regard to
their weighting on the five major clusters obtained
from Figure 3 (in a slightly modified version embod-
ying 67 not 47 terms). The results (Table 3) and the
cluster analysis (Figure 6) show something of the con-
ceptual structure captured in different languages, and
show how closely other terms relate to the term bul-
lying. Naturally, the results are limited by the choice
of terms used in each country, and the number of
terms available. The relatively few items in the social
exclusion cluster (six items) may reflect an uninten-
tional lesser emphasis on these terms in the instruc-
tions given to participating teams for generating
terms to use. Indeed, the English data did not include
such terms as social exclusion or rejection. Thus, little
attention can be given to the absence of a term in the
clusters in Table 3, for a particular country or lan-
guage. However, it is possible to compare profiles of
those terms, which are present.
The English term bullying loaded highly on both
physical and verbal bullying, moderately highly on
social exclusion, less highly on an even-handed dis-
pute or a provoked retaliation, and, of course, mini-
mally on nonaggression (see Table 3). This is consis-
tent with the general adult understanding of the term;
bullying is different from aggression, and is generally
thought to be both physical and verbal, but is not al-
ways thought to include more psychological forms of
behavior such as social exclusion. Boulton (1997)
found that less than 50% of teachers and only one in
five pupils in English schools defined psychological
or emotional abuse as “bullying.”
Table 3 might be used to help choose the most suit-
able term, when translating a questionnaire such as
the Olweus questionnaire into another language.
Even if the questionnaire gives an extended definition
near the beginning, it is usual that one term is used in
most of the questions (e.g., “How often have you been
bullied this month?”), and it is correspondingly likely
that children may use their natural understanding of
this term (“bullied”) rather more than the longer def-
inition read earlier.
However, the English term bullying, as used by
schoolchildren, does not match perfectly with the def-
initional concept used by many researchers and now
widely accepted in the scientific community; this is
because the term bullying, at least in England in the
Smith et al. 1131
late 1990s, still did not fully include social exclusion.
Thus the Portuguese term abuso might be taken as
reasonably similar in common usage to the English
term bullying, being high on physical and verbal bul-
lying, lower on social exclusion, and very low on
fighting. However, the Portuguese term armar-se could
be seen as a better correspondent to the scientific def-
inition, because it is higher on social exclusion. This
imperfect correspondence between popular and sci-
entific definition of terms such as bullying is an issue
that researchers must remain aware of.
Table 3 may also help in the interpretation of cross-
national comparisons. For example, Genta et al.
(1996) compared rates of bullying (using the Olweus
questionnaire) in Italy, with those in the United King-
dom reported by Whitney and Smith (1993). Gener-
ally high rates of bullying were found in both central
and southern Italy that were notably higher than the
rates reported in the United Kingdom. In the Italian
questionnaire, the term prepotenza was used for bully-
ing. Table 3 shows that prepotenza does indeed load
highly on physical, verbal, and social exclusionary
bullying, but also on fighting (Cluster 2). Thus, the
higher rates may reflect a more inclusive response in-
corporating even-handed fighting, as well as bullying
with an imbalance of power. Using the term prepo-
tenza in questionnaires in Italy may therefore lead to
an overestimation, if the findings are then referred to
as yielding rates of bullying. Other Italian terms such as
violenza, cattiveria, or scoretto suffer a similar problem.
An alternative to using global terms such as bully-
ing in questionnaire surveys is to ask for information
on the experience of particular acts. For example, the
Life in School checklist (Arora, 1994) asks children if
they have experienced acts such as being hit, threat-
ened, teased, or called names. This avoids issues of
children’s understanding of the term bullying. How-
ever, if researchers wish to make generalizations
about the occurrence of bullying, they face the prob-
lem of deciding which acts should be included as bul-
lying. This amounts to a decision by the researchers,
not the children. In addition, such questionnaires nor-
mally do not specify that there should be an imbal-
ance of power in the act experienced, so straightfor-
ward fighting and aggression (rather than bullying)
may be included by researchers. These drawbacks
mean that there is likely to continue to be a place for
questionnaires about bullying (or ijime, abuso, or
whatever term is used in a particular country), and it
is then important to know how children understand
these terms.
Researchers who investigate the phenomenon of
bullying are involved, as are adult and child members
of the community, in the process of constructing its
1132 Child Development
meaning in a social and historical context. Histori-
cally, meanings of words change. Even the core con-
cept of the term bully has changed dramatically over
several centuries. More subtle changes have taken
place in the past 5 years, with the incorporation of
more indirect and relational forms of bullying into
current definitions. In addition, the term bullying is
now commonly used in the workplace and is not
solely confined to the school context.
The current study therefore represents an histori-
cal snapshot of the meaning of terms cognate to bul-
lying, at the turn of the second millenium. This snap-
shot is moreover limited by the particular samples of
terms used, and of choice of respondents, in the 14
countries selected. However, the findings should as-
sist in the design and interpretation of comparative
cross-national studies of bullying at the present time
and for some years to come. In addition, the findings
concerning the greater discrimination of criteria at 14
years than 8 years, and the lack of gender differences
in understanding and use of terms despite the gender
differences in behavior, may be of considerable gener-
alizability over time and in different countries.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Hidefumi Arimoto, Julius K. Bjorns-
son, Cheryl Blackadder, Pamela Burton, Isabel Fernan-
dez, Rosa Fera, Hector Gutierrez, Stefan Korn, Jessica
Mahdavi, Ersilia Menesini, Vicky Panagiotidou, Vicky
Pavlidis, Colin Pritchard, Rosario del Rey, Ebba Staven,
Mitsuru Taki, and Thanes Wongyannava for help in
data collection. This study was supported by contract
ERBFMRX-CT-970139 from the European Commission
on “The Causes and Nature of Bullying and Social Ex-
clusion in Schools, and Ways of Preventing Them”
(http://www.gold.ac.uk/tmr).
ADDRESSES AND AFFILIATIONS
Corresponding author: Peter K. Smith, Department of
Psychology, Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London
SE14 6NW, U.K.; e-mail: p.smith@gold.ac.uk. Helen
Cowie is at the University of Surrey Roehampton,
London, U.K.; Ragnar F. Olafsson is at the Institute for
Educational Research, Reykjavik, Iceland; and Andy
P. D. Liefooghe is at Birkbeck College, London, U.K.
Collaborating authors and their affiliations are: Ana
Almeida, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal;
Hozumi Araki, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Ja-
pan; Cristina del Barrio, Universidad Autonoma de
Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Angela Costabile, Universitá
della Calabria, Cosenza, Italy; Bojan Dekleva, Uni-
versity of Ljubljana, Llubljana, Slovenia; Anastasia
Houndoumadi, Deree College, Athens, Greece; Ken-
neth Kim, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.;
Ragnar P. Olafsson, Institute for Educational Research,
Reykjavik, Iceland; Rosario Ortega, Universidad de
Sevilla, Seville, Spain; Jacques Pain, Universite Paris
X Nanterre, Paris, France; Lena Pateraki, Deree Col-
lege, Athens, Greece; Mechthild Schafer, Universität
München, Munich, Germany; Monika Singer, Gold-
smiths College, University of London, London, U.K.;
Andrea Smorti, Universitá di Firenze, Florence, Italy;
Yuichi Toda, Osaka University of Education, Osaka,
Japan; Helgi Tomasson, University of Iceland, Reyk-
javik, Iceland; Zhang Wenxin, Shandong Teacher’s
University, Jinan, People’s Republic of China.
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