Children entering primary school are immersed in a novel context involving new figures of authority and a new peer group. Most children adapt well to this new setting (Quinn & Hennessy, 2010), but this new social sphere is not always benign. Some children are victimized by their peers, posing risks for children's adjustment, including peer rejection, loneliness, and school avoidance (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996 and Van Lier and Koot, 2010). Socio-emotional consequences of sustained victimization can include reduced academic achievement (Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006), externalizing problems (Leadbeater & Hoglund, 2009) and internalizing problems (e.g., Boivin et al., 1995 and Hanish and Guerra, 2002), and in extreme cases, suicidal ideation (Brunstein Klomek et al., 2008 and Kim et al., 2005).
What determines whom peers victimize? Research suggests that this is a function of Child × Environment interactions (Gazelle, 2006). Child × Environment models (Cairns et al., 1996, Magnusson, 1988 and Sameroff, 1993) emphasize that neither child behavior nor social contexts alone are adequate to account for children's developmental outcomes, but that an analysis of specific behaviors in particular contexts is required. For peer victimization, children's own behavior may serve to partly determine whether or not they are targets. Indeed, research has addressed aspects of the child's social behavior that can influence peer status, with social withdrawal (e.g., Gazelle & Ladd, 2003) and physical aggression (e.g., Barker et al., 2008) particularly important in understanding the development of victimization. But these behaviors may be of greater or lesser risk depending on the social context in which they are experienced. A small body of research has examined how teacher–child (T–C) relationship quality might serve as a risk for peer victimization; another small body of research has examined T–C relationship and/or classroom climate as a moderator of children's behavioral risk (e.g., Arbeau et al., 2010, Gazelle, 2006 and Spangler Avant et al., 2011). But to date, no longitudinal studies examined whether teacher–child relationship quality moderates children's behavioral risk over time to predict children's risk of peer victimization.
Peer victimization and children's social behavior
On average, peer victimization increases over the early years (Barker et al., 2008) and appears to stabilize thereafter (Snyder et al., 2003). Yet many if not most children experience little or no victimization in the early school years (Løhre, Lydersen, Paulsen, Mæhle, & Vatten, 2011); Barker et al. (2008) note that one in ten young children is a target of victimization. Nevertheless, by late childhood, some children have developed stable reputations as victims (Biggs et al., 2010 and Boivin et al., 2010). To understand who is targeted, it may be necessary to consider how children's social behaviors may confer risk of peer victimization.
Research on peer victimization has established individual vulnerabilities that increase children's victimization risk (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2010). Children who display physical aggression may themselves become targets of other's aggression (Olweus, 1978). The evidence for the role of aggression in children's peer victimization, however, is mixed. Externalizing behaviors appear to predict the initial risk that a child will be victimized in kindergarten, but not necessarily subsequent changes in victimization status (Reavis, Keane, & Calkins, 2010). The role of aggression in predicting victimization is complicated by the potential for aggression to suppress further victimization, at least in the short term (Snyder et al., 2003). In light of this mixed evidence, further research examining the predictive role of early aggression on the likelihood and severity of victimization over time is warranted.
Children who are socially withdrawn in peer contexts are more likely to be excluded by peers in first grade (Arbeau et al., 2010) and to become passive victims (Boulton, 1999 and Hodges et al., 1997). Social withdrawal predicts subsequent peer victimization in the middle-school years, accounting for previous levels of peer victimization (Boivin et al., 2010). Given the stability of social inhibition in childhood (Pfeifer, Goldsmith, Davison, & Rickman, 2002), further research examining the role of early social withdrawal on children's victimization is needed. Moreover, Gazelle's (2006) work suggests that the relationship of social withdrawal to peer adversity should be examined in relation to the specific social contexts in which withdrawal occurs.
