Prof Izabela Zych, Associate Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Córdoba (Spain), is visiting the Violence Research Centre for four months.
Prof Zych is a member of the international research network of the Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso). She will be working with Prof Eisner, Prof Farrington and Dr Ttofi on longitudinal risk and protective factors against bullying. She says:
“Collaboration with Prof Eisner and other colleagues in the VRC is a wonderful opportunity to learn and advance knowledge regarding developmental prevention of antisocial behaviours including bullying. A couple of years ago I started to collaborate in the z-proso project directed by Prof Eisner. Our first paper, focused on stability and change in bullying roles, has just been accepted in the Child Development journal, one of the most prestigious in the field. After discovering how children remain or transition among the bullying roles, we are now working on longitudinal predictors of stability and change in bullying. We hope to discover the factors that put children at risk and protect them from different patterns of involvement in bullying.”
Prof Zych has published various research articles about bullying, including studies focused on risk and protective factors. These comprise different methodologies such as systematic reviews and meta-analyses, cross sectional descriptive studies with representative samples of adolescents and an intervention study.
She adds: “z-proso is a unique project conducted by a group of very skillful researchers led by Prof Eisner. I am very lucky to collaborate in this project because it measured a great number of variables that had not been studied before. Thanks to z-proso, our paper accepted in Child Development is, to our knowledge, the first study in the world that described transitions in bullying roles with just under 1000 school students followed up biannually from age 11 to 17. After my visit, we hope to publish a paper with a great number of predictors of stability and change in bullying. These four months are going to be very exciting!”
She is the Principal Investigator of a large project focused on prevention of bullying and cyberbullying funded by the Spanish National Research and Development programme. She has participated and led different research projects, and presented at international conferences across the world, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, France and the UK. She is a member of the LAECOVI research team in the University of Córdoba and a member of several international associations, including the Campbell Collaboration's Crime and Justice Steering Committee. Her postgraduate/undergraduate teaching and PhD supervision is mostly related to youth violence. She has been a Guest Editor of several special journal issues about bullying and cyberbullying.
On Thursday 6 December, she delivered a seminar entitled Protecting Children against Bullying and Cyberbullying at the Institute of Criminology. Slides are available here.
Prof Zych's recent papers include:
Zych, I., Ttofi, M.M., Llorent, V.J., Farrington, D.P., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M.P. (2019). A longitudinal study on stability and transitions among bullying roles. Child Development, Accepted.
Zych, I., Farrington, D.P., & Ttofi, M.M. (2018). Protective factors against bullying and cyberbullying: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Aggression and Violent Behavior, Online First.
Zych, I., Beltrán-Catalán, M., Ortega-Ruiz, R., & Llorent, V.J. (2018). Social and Emotional Competencies in Adolescents Involved in Different Bullying and Cyberbullying Roles. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 23, 86-93.
Zych, I., Ortega-Ruiz, R., & Llorent, V.J. (2017). Nature and Dynamics of Peer Violence in Polish Upper Secondary Schools. Social Psychology of Education, 20, 427–443.
Zych, I., Farrington, D., Llorent, V.J., & Ttofi, M.M. (2017). Protecting children against bullying and its consequences. New York: Springer.
Zych, I., Ttofi, M.M., & Farrington, D.P. (2017). Empathy and callous-unemotional traits in different bullying roles: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, Online first.