Bullying, Victimization, and Peer Harassment

A Handbook of Prevention and Intervention

Charles A Maher, Joseph Zins, Maurice Elias

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317787211
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A comprehensive examination of theory, research, prevention and intervention, and professional practice issues - in one source.

Teasing, shunning, and bullying can have serious detrimental effects on both victim and perpetrator. Bullying, Victimization, and Peer Harassment: A Handbook of Prevention and Intervention comprehensively gathers emerging research, theory, and effective practice on this subject into one invaluable source. This thorough review of a wide spectrum of innovative, evidence-based practices targets the complex problems of victimization, peer harassment, and bullying in our schools. Interventions range from individuals and their peers to broad, systems-level change within schools and communities. The challenge of prevention is also explored, using the latest studies as a practical foundation. Suggestions are provided detailing effective strategies to make changes in the culture within schools while offering directions for future research and practice.

Bullying, Victimization, and Peer Harassment discusses research on current intervention programs now in place that, until now, has never been evaluated. Several of the studies address middle school issues and multi-ethnic populations, including those from the United States, Canada, and Europe. Peer sexual harassment and dating-related aggression are examined that includes and goes beyond traditional views of bullying and peer intimidation. This valuable handbook provides concise yet extensive information on the most current theory, empirical research, practice guidelines, and suggestions for preparing schools for programmatic initiatives.

Topics in Bullying, Victimization, and Peer Harassment include:

• theory and conceptual issues in victimization, bullying, and peer harassment
  
• assessment
  
• results from a four-year longitudinal study on peer victimization in early adolescents
  
• youth perceptions toward bullying
  
• high school students' victimization profiles
  
• immigrant children and victimization
  
• evaluating an adolescent violence prevention program
  
• a school-based intervention program
  
• peer group intervention
  
• interventions for victims
  
• multiple perspectives involving sexual harassment
  
• school-wide approaches to prevention and intervention
  
• and much more!

Bullying, Victimization, and Peer Harassment is a crucial resource for researchers and mental health professionals who work in schools and who work with children and their families, such as school psychologists, counselors, clinical child psychologists, social workers, and community psychologists.

SECTION II:
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH AND OTHER IMPORTANT EVIDENCE

Chapter 3

Dynamics of Peer Victimization in Early Adolescence: Results from a Four-Year Longitudinal Study

Jennifer J. Paul
Antonius H. N. Cillessen

Early adolescence is a crucial period of development due to the many biological, cognitive, and social changes that occur during this time. Peer relationships and interactions during the middle school years greatly influence differentiation and individuation of self-concepts. It is during early adolescence that an extremely fragile sense of self begins to unfold. Adolescents in this stage of development are able to recognize contradictions in their self-concepts and in how they conceptualize others, but they are not yet able to explain or reconcile these contradictions (Harter, 1998). Experiences during this time of social development will shape eventual identity formation in later adolescence and early adulthood.

Considering the impact of peer relations on normative social development during early adolescence, it follows that studying peer harassment or victimization that occurs during this time is critical. Peer relations researchers have considered various forms of peer harassment, including being a victim of physical, direct verbal, and indirect verbal aggression (Underwood, Galen, & Paquette, 2001). Although researchers in this area of study have often explored victimization in elementary school samples (e.g., Crick & Bigbee, 1998; Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999; Kochenderfer-Ladd & Wardrop, 2001), less is known about this phenomenon in adolescence. One reason for this is that victimization is often assessed using peer nomina tions, and sociometric methods had not been used very often in early ado lescent groups until recently. It is, however, crucial to explore victimization further in the early adolescent years because the experience of victimiza tion may be especially detrimental at this time of identity formation and de velopment of peer interactions and relationships.

STABILITY OF VICTIMIZATION

The stability of physically aggressive behavior is a well-documented find ing (Coie & Dodge, 1998). Individual differences in aggression are stable over time and consistent across changes in peer group composition. Less is known, however, about the stability of being the target of peer aggression or victimization. Understanding the stability of victimization is crucial because victimization is a serious problem for students who are frequently its targets.

Most research on the stability of victimization has focused on frequency rather than chronicity (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Boulton & Underwood, 1992). Kochenderfer-Ladd and Wardrop (2001) examined physical, verbal, indirect verbal, and general victimization, and suggested that chronic victimization is not as common as might be expected based on frequency studies. This finding may be due in part to their focus on children in early elementary school only. Victimization may become more stable over the course of development and especially in early adolescence (Hodges & Perry, 1999). The stability of victimization needs to be considered not only across time, but also across contexts, keeping in mind potential changes in peer group composition. In this respect, the change from elementary to middle school, especially when it results in a new peer group, is an important developmen tal transition. If victimization is highly stable across time and contexts, it is critical to intervene at the earliest sign of victimization rather than believing that victimization is an experience that will pass.

Correlates and Consequences of Victimization

Research has shown that the experience of victimization is tied to emo tional distress such as loneliness, anxiety, and depression (see, for a review, Kochenderfer-Ladd & Ladd, 2001) and to maladjustment as reflected in poor school achievement, self-confidence, self-esteem, and prosocial skills (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996; Perry, Perry, & Kennedy, 1992). These correlates of victimization have been explored in not only North American children, but also children in other cultures. For children between nine and twelve years old in Greece (Andreou, 2001), in China (Schwartz, Chang, & Farver, 2001), and Turkish children living in The Netherlands (Verkuyten & Thijs, 2001), the experience of victimization has been found to be negatively correlated with self-worth and academic functioning, and positively correlated with behavior problems. Researchers in England (Mynard, Joseph, & Alexander, 2000) and South Australia (Rigby, 2000) studied twelve-to sixteen-year-old adolescents and found victimization to be correlated with increased psychological distress (e.g., anxiety, depression) and diminished self-worth. Since many of the present studies of the concurrent correlates of victimization rely solely on self-report, however, researchers must continue to explore these by building upon the few studies that have used a multiinformant approach (e.g., Boivin, Hymel, & Hodges, 2001; Schwartz et al., 2001).

While it is clear that social maladjustment occurs concurrently with the experience of victimization, a number of studies have suggested that many of the concurrent correlates of victimization are also short-term consequences of victimization. For example, Hodges et al. (1999) found that victimized children without a mutual best friend experience both internalizing and externalizing problems one year later. In addition, increased truancy and a decline in academic performance in the spring of one academic year have been identified as short-term consequences of being victimized the previous fall (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996).

Furthermore, the experience of victimization at the hands of peers predicts retaliatory violence by the victims, who may imitate the aggression to which they have been chronically subjected. Various studies have demonstrated an association between victimization and aggression; between 5 and 10 percent of children who are the victims of peer aggression are themselves aggressive toward others (Olweus, 1978; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999; Perry et al., 1992; Schwartz, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1997). These children often become involved in emotionally charged conflicts that they tend to mismanage (Perry et al., 1992). Reports in the media of teenagers who have been involved in school shootings have suggested that these students often had a history of peer victimization before they became violent themselves. Isaacs, Card, and Hodges (2000) shed further light on this anecdotal information by showing that early adolescent boys (girls report never carrying weapons) who score high on both victimization and aggression are the most likely to carry weapons to middle school. Thus, victimization may play an important role in the occurrence of violence in school.

Predictors of Victimization

In addition to examining the concurrent behavioral and sociocognitive correlates and short-term consequences, the predictors of victimization are equally important. Elementary school students have been the focus of most of the current studies on the predictors of victimization. These studies have suggested that low self-perceived social competence, poor peer relations, in ternalizing and externalizing problems, and physical weakness may be pre dictors of elementary school victimization (see, for a review, Perry, Hodges, & Egan, 2001).

Hodges and Perry (1999) conducted one of the few studies that included older children when they examined the antecedents of victimization in third through seventh graders across a one-year interval. They found that internalizing problems, physical weakness, and peer rejection each contributed to later victimization. However, relatively little is known about the antecedents of victimization over longer intervals and into adolescence. This information is important from an early intervention perspective. Knowledge of the early predictors helps school administrators to identify students who are most likely to become victims later and to plan interventions accordingly. Intervention should address not only victimization in a proactive manner, but bullying as well. Teaching and encouraging children to embrace and value diversity, acquire team-building skills, and develop effective anger management and conflict resolution strategies at an early age are key in this effort.

Current Study

Given these considerations, the goal of the current study was to contrib ute to what is known about the role of victimization in adolescent develop ment, and identify potential points of prevention and intervention by exam ining in detail the correlates, outcomes, and predictors of victimization in early adolescence. General victimization, including physical, direct verbal, and indirect verbal forms, was examined. The specific research predictions were as follows: (1) victimization is expected to be stable across four con secutive school years (Grades 4–7), including the transition from elementary to middle school; (2) victimization is expected to be related to concurrent measures of social and academic functioning at school in early adolescence (Grade 6); (3) victimization is expected to be negatively related to shortterm adjustment outcomes in early adolescence (Grade 7); (4) both internalizing withdrawal behaviors and externalizing disruptive behaviors in elementary school (Grades 4–5) are expected to be predictors of early adolescent victimization, while self-efficacy and positive peer relationships are expected to protect against later victimization; and (5) previous research has indicated that the dynamics of peer victimization may differ for boys and girls, but the reported differences are highly variable from study to study, making it difficult to hypothesize specific differences. Therefore, the examination of gender differences within the dynamics of peer victimization is treated as exploratory.

METHOD

Participants and Design

Data collection took place in the spring of four consecutive school years as students from one cohort were followed longitudinally from Grade 4 to Grade 7. In each year, all students were invited to participate in the study. The participation rate was 95 percent or higher in each year, resulting in sample sizes ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Haworth School Psychology
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Editors
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Section I: Theory and Conceptual Issues
• Section II: Empirical Research and Other Important Evidence
• Section III: Empirically Validated and Promising Preventive and Supportive Interventions
• Section IV: Guidelines for Practice: Professional Issues and Legal Considerations
• Section V: School-Wide Approaches
• Index