Migration and bullying

Today aggression is one of the most frequently used notions in several fields, e. g. the fields of special education, developmental psychology and child psychiatry (Merk, Orobio de Castro, Koops & Matthys, 2005). Nonetheless, it might be unclear exactly what is meant by the term ‘aggression’. Various definitions and typologies of aggression have been put forward over the years. Reactive and proactive aggression are often used and seen as two different features of aggression: the first one originating from frustration-anger theory and the latter from social learning theory. In addition, proactive aggression may be divided into power related and affiliation related proactive aggression , dependent on what is the feature and function behind the behaviour. Moreover, research from different countries show that these features seem to play different roles in the immigrant and non-immigrant groups. The aim of this chapter is to go deeper into the concept of aggression and the empirical findings in the context of Norway in where the three different types of aggression has been related to bullying and mental health problems among immigrant and non-immigrants. The research will however be discussed in relation to findings in other countries that have replicated one of the studies in Norway, thus the immigrant situation in two other countries will be described, in addition to the Norwegian one. The findings will be discussed in relation to acculturation strategies for immigrants. In addition, implications of the findings will be pointed to, concerning both research and prevention and intervention strategies.