BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF TRENDS IN STUDYING BULLYING AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Relevance. A significant increase in the number of publications devoted to bullying necessitates their evaluation and monitoring in order to structure the scientific literature. Bibliometric analysis, complementing the systematic one, makes it possible to cover large amounts of data over a long period of time, to identify trends and prospects for the development of the subject area. Review articles on bullying issues are based primarily on a systematic approach. Similar bibliometric studies are fragmentary and are devoted to specific aspects of bullying. This study provides an overall assessment of the evolution of bullying research over the past 20 years. Purpose: mapping publications of Russian and foreign scientists on the problems of bullying as a social phenomenon for the period from 2003 to 2022, presented in the eLIBRARY.RU and PubMed databases. Methods: systematic literature review, comparative analysis of publications by Russian and foreign bullying researchers, bibliometric analysis using analytical tools of Google Trends, Google Academy platforms, eLIBRARY.RU and PubMed, as well as the VOSviewer program. Results. Psychological, pedagogical, legal, sociological approaches to understanding bullying as a scientific category are analyzed. A comparative analysis of trends in the study of bullying problems in Russia and abroad was carried out. The universities, journals, authors, whose contribution to the study of bullying is the most significant were identified. The sectoral and subject structure of bullying research is analyzed. Based on the VOSviewer program, clusters of publications in the PubMed database were analyzed. Insufficiently studied and promising areas of bullying research are identified. Practical significance. The main results can be used in scientific activities in determining problem fields, vectors for the development of ideas about the phenomenon of bullying. For novice researchers, the findings can be a guide in choosing the most reputable scientists in the field and specialized journals.