بررسی ارتباط بین اشکال رفتار زورگویی و برداشت ایمنی و تعلقی میان دانش آموزان دبیرستان

Abstract Research suggests that students who bully may perceive the school climate less favorably. Person-centered analyses were used to identify distinct groupings of bullying behaviors and related social–emotional factors (i.e., victimization, internalizing, and perception of school and bullying climate). Latent class analyses were conducted on a sample of 10,254 middle and 2509 high school students and indicated four classes in middle school (Low Involvement, Verbal, High Physical/High Verbal, and High Involvement) and three classes in high school (Low Involvement, Verbal, and High Involvement). A Low Involvement bullying class characterized most students and was related to positive adjustment, whereas a High Involvement bullying class represented the smallest proportion of the sample (1.6% middle school and 7.3% in high school). Students in the High Involvement class reported increased victimization and internalizing problems, feeling less safe and less belonging, and perceiving the school climate to be more supportive of bullying (i.e., perceiving adults' prevention and intervention efforts as ineffective). In middle school, the High Physical/High Verbal class reported significantly higher levels of victimization as compared to the Verbal class. Findings highlight heterogeneity in bullying behaviors and underscore the importance of prevention and intervention programming that addresses safety and belonging.

1. Introduction Research suggests that students who perceive their school as unsafe and unsupportive are more likely to engage in bullying behaviors (Bradshaw, Sawyer, & O'Brennan, 2009); this pattern in turn may contribute to a “climate or culture of bullying” (Bradshaw and Waasdorp, 2009 and Unnever and Cornell, 2003). Yet there has been limited research on the distinct forms of bullying (e.g., physical aggression, verbal aggression, relational aggression, see Card, Stucky, Sawalani, & Little, 2008 for discussion of the forms) and in relation to aspects of school climate, such as safety and belongingness. The present study examined distinct patterns in the use of a variety of bullying behaviors (physically aggressing, verbally aggressing, relationally aggressing, cyber bullying, stealing, and making sexual comments) and social–emotional factors (victimization, internalizing problems) in relation to two core aspects of school climate (safety and belonging) and bullying climate via person-centered analyses. We explored potential differences in the patterns of bullying perpetration among middle school and high school students, respectively, as prior research suggests there would be developmental differences between the bullying behaviors of these two age groups (Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010). The current research may inform prevention and intervention programs: for example, by identifying potential social–emotional problems (e.g., internalizing problems, victimization, and social difficulties) of children who bully that could be addressed through tiered preventive interventions (Ross & Horner, 2009). We also aimed to enhance understanding of intra-individual differences in the forms of bullying and social–emotional factors, which are critical for enhancing indicated interventions.

3. Results 3.1. Descriptive analyses Table 2 provided key study variables by school level. The data indicated that 4194 students reported engaging in one form of bullying. On average, middle school students reported engaging in approximately two bullying behaviors (M = 1.81, SD = 2.28), whereas high school students reported engaging in approximately three bullying behaviors (M = 2.84, SD = 3.22), which was significantly more bullying behaviors than the middle school students, t(12,761) = − 14.9, p < .001. Among middle school students, calling other students names and teasing/making fun of were the most commonly reported forms of bullying, whereas making sexual comments and stealing were the least commonly reported among this age group (see Table 3). Similarly, among high school students, calling other students names and teasing/making fun of were the most commonly reported, whereas stealing and cyber bullying were the least common forms. These variations in findings by school level, along with preliminary LCA analyses substantiated the decision to stratify the analyses by school level. As a reminder, these classes refer to the perpetrators of bullying behaviors, not the victims. Table 2. Key study variables by school level. Measures Middle school High school %(N) M(SD) Social–emotional factors Victimizationa 0.96 (1.36) 0.99 (1.47) Internalizinga 1.76 (0.64) 1.96 (0.73) Safety and belonging Safetya 2.96 (0.91) 2.72 (0.99) Belonginga 3.13 (0.92) 2.89 (1.03) School bullying climate Bullying is not a problema 2.59 (0.94) 2.54 (1.01) Not witnessing bullying 36.0 (3690) 34.5 (865) Adults do enough to prevent bullying 45.2 (4630) 36.0 (904) Adults intervene when they see bullying 62.8 (6438) 49.6 (1245) Adult interventions are effectivea 2.54 (1.01) 2.20 (0.98) Reported bullying and adult responded 26.4 (2705) 27.0 (677) Note. a This variable was continuous, for which the mean and standard deviation (reported in parentheses) are provided. Table options Table 3. Percentage of respondents who reported perpetrating each form of bullying, disaggregated by school-level. Form of bullying Middle school High school n = 10,254 n = 2509 Threatening to hurt or hit 9.4 11.0 Pushing or shoving 11.9 10.8 Hitting/slapping/kicking 8.6 9.7 Making sexual comments 4.0 7.0 Stealing 4.3 5.9 Spreading rumors 7.2 7.1 Ignoring 12.5 11.4 Cyber bullying 5.0 6.0 Calling names 18.5 15.6 Teasing/making fun of 18.6 15.6 Note. Numbers represent the percentage of youth who reported that they engaged in the form of bullying specified (i.e., responded “yes”). Table options 3.2. Model selection and description A series of latent class models was examined to determine if there were discrete classes of youth with different patterns of bullying behaviors. Based on several fit statistics (Nylund et al., 2007), theory, and empirical research (Wang et al., 2009 and Wang et al., 2010), the four-class model for middle school students and the three-class model for high school students provided the best fit to the data (see Table 4). For middle school youth, the LMR-LRT indicated that a five-class model did not significantly improve in fit over the four-class model, thereby providing support for the more parsimonious four-class model. Additionally, the reductions in BIC, SSA BIC, and AIC were diminishing. Finally, the addition of new classes did not provide any new information or new patterns; instead, the fifth class represented a variation on the existing theme and pattern (i.e., the fifth class was simply a variation of the verbal class). Posterior probabilities were high (class 1 = .93; class 2 = .99; class 3 = .98; class 4 = .98) suggesting high separation of the classes. Table 4. Fit indices for latent class analyses of middle and high school youth. Number of classes BIC AIC SSA BIC Adjusted LMR-LRT p-value Entropy Smallest class size Middle school (n = 10,254) 1 class 59,506.47 59,434.12 59,474.69 – – – 2 classes 45,423.97 45,272.03 45,423.97 < .0001 .91 1514 (14.7) 3 classes 43,694.57 43,463.03 43,592.88 .0002 .87 487 (4.8) 4 classes 43,124.08 42,791.25 42,977.89 .04 .87 166 (1.6) 5 classes 42,957.40 42,566.69 42,785.796 .20 .84 145 (1.4) High school (n = 2509) 1 class 21,875.89 21,817.62 21,844.12 – – – 2 classes 14,395.89 14,273.51 14,329.17 < .0001 .95 488 (19.5) 3 classes 13,190.64 12,992.50 13,082.62 .01 .94 182 (7.3) 4 classes 12,899.64 12,649.05 12,763.02 .10 .91 158 (6.3) Note. Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC; Schwarz, 1978), Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), sample size adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion (SSA BIC; Sclove, 1987), sample size adjusted Lo–Mendell–Rubin adjusted likelihood ratio test (LMR-LRT; Lo et al., 2001). Bolded model indicates best fitting model. In the far right column, numbers represent number of participants in the smallest latent class, with the percentages in parentheses. Table options For high school students, the LMR-LRT indicated that the four-class model did not significantly improve on the fit of the three-class model, providing support for the more parsimonious three-class model. As with the middle school LCA, reductions in BIC, SSA BIC, and AIC were diminishing. In fact, the largest difference in BIC was between the two- and three-class solutions. Thus, by plotting the BICs for each class (i.e., “elbow plots;” Petras & Masyn, 2010), one can clearly see where class enumeration should stop where there are diminishing returns in the addition of classes. Similar to the middle school LCA, the additional classes did not contribute new information or patterns, just variations on the extant theme (i.e., the fourth class was a variation of the second class). Posterior probabilities were high (class 1 = .94; class 2 = .88; class 3 = .94; class 4 = .90) suggesting highly separate, distinctive classes. Once these models were selected, given the literature on possible gender differences in the forms of bullying used, gender was included as a covariate in the model (i.e., regressing class membership on gender). Results indicated that adding gender to the model did not substantively change the patterns of the classes, further illustrating the stability of the classes (Lubke & Muthén, 2007). Specifically, the overall distribution of participants across the classes did not change as a result of including gender. Similarly, the predicted probabilities resulting from the models did not change as a result of the inclusion of this covariate. Gender differences in class membership are detailed in the social–emotional factors of the bullying classes subsection that follows. As demonstrated in Fig. 1a and b, for both middle and high school students, there was a large Low Involvement class that did not engage in any form of bullying behavior (76.3% and 71.8%, respectively) and a small High Involvement class that reported engaging in numerous forms of bullying (1.6% and 7.3%, respectively). In middle school, there were two additional classes, which were labeled Verbal and High Physical/High Verbal based on the forms of bullying that were most perpetrated by each group. The Verbal class (16.6%) had a higher probability of reporting engaging in verbal bullying strategies (i.e., .53 for calling names and .54 for teasing) and ignoring (.33) more than the other bullying strategies. Over 70% of the students in the High Physical/High Verbal class (5.5%) reported engaging in physical bullying strategies (range of .75 to .89, see Fig. 1a) and verbal bullying strategies (range of .78 to .81, see Fig. 1a). a. Latent class profiles of bullying behaviors for middle school students ... Fig. 1. a. Latent class profiles of bullying behaviors for middle school students (n = 10,254). b. Latent class profiles of bullying behaviors for high school students (n = 2509). Figure options Like the middle school students, the high school LCA yielded Low and High Involvement classes. Unlike the middle school students, the high school data yielded three instead of four classes. Among high school students, the third remaining mid-involvement class was labeled Verbal, with over 70% of these youth reported engaging in verbal bullying behaviors, between 40 and 47% of youth reported engaging in physical bullying behaviors, and 41% reported engaging in ignoring others (see Fig. 1b). 3.3. Social–emotional factors of the bullying classifications As stated previously, gender was included as a covariate in the LCA model. All class comparison estimates presented are in reference to the Low Involvement class. An alpha of .05 was used for all tests of statistical significance. In middle school, girls were significantly more likely than boys were to be in the Verbal class (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] = 1.36) and less likely to be in the other classes as compared to boys (AORHigh Involvement = 0.63 and AORHigh Physical/Verbal = 0.76). In high school, girls were significantly less likely to be in the High Involvement class as compared to boys (AOR = 0.63). There were no other significant gender differences. Race/ethnicity and urbanicity (urban vs. rural and suburban) were also included as covariates in the LCA model. The pattern of LCA classes did not differ by race/ethnicity or urbanicity; however, African American students were significantly more likely to be in the High Involvement class as compared to the other classes. To further validate the latent classifications obtained in the current study, five outcomes were compared across the latent classifications: victimization, internalizing problems, perceived safety, belonging, and bullying climate. The results indicated that those in the High Involvement class had significantly higher levels of victimization and internalizing problems than all other classes; this pattern held for both middle school (see Table 5) and high school (see Table 6) students. Table 5. Comparison of latent classes of forms of bullying behavior by demographic characteristics social–emotional factors, safety, belonging, and school bullying climate in middle school (n = 10,254). Latent classes of forms of bullying behavior Low involvement Verbal High physical/high verbal High involvement Demographic characteristic Boys 44.4% 50.4% 57.5% 65.0% White 65.5% 51.8% 47.1% 44.6% Urban 54.3% 65.7% 66.0% 56.1% Grade 7.02 (0.93) 7.10 (0.87) 7.31 (0.87) 7.74 (1.34) Social–emotional factors Victimization 0.81 1.35 1.52 2.58 Internalizing 1.71 1.89A 1.97A 2.33 Safety 3.03 2.79A 2.68AB 2.47B Belonging 3.18 2.99AC 2.93BC 2.79AB School bullying climate Bullying is not a problem 2.68 2.35 2.21A 1.98A Not witnessed bullying† 0.41 0.20A 0.16AB 0.11B Adults do enough to prevent bullying† 0.48A 0.38BC 0.34BD 0.43ACD Adults intervene when they see bullying† 0.68 0.50 0.39 0.22 Adult interventions are effective 2.48 2.18A 1.98B 1.95 AB Reported bullying and adult responded† 0.77 0.63A 0.64A 0.40 Note. Means in rows sharing superscripts are NOT significantly different at p < .05. Bolded = mean (standard deviation). † Dichotomous variables. Numbers represent percent of individuals in the class who reported “yes” in response to the school bullying climate item. All other variables are mean scores. Table options Table 6. Comparison of latent classes of forms of bullying behavior by social–emotional factors, safety, belonging, and school bullying climate in high school (n = 2509). Latent classes of forms of bullying behavior Low involvement Verbal High involvement Demographic characteristic Boys 49.9% 44.9% 60.2% White 64.0% 61.8% 49.2% Urban 52.1% 55.1% 63.5% Grade 9.77 (0.97) 9.70 (0.93) 9.87 (1.13) Social–emotional factors Victimization 0.70 1.42 2.71 Internalizing problems 1.88 2.01 2.58 Safety 2.80 2.61 2.30 Belonging 2.92A 2.89A 2.61 School bullying climate Bullying is not a problem 2.69 2.29 1.71 I have not witnessed bullying† 0.42 0.20 0.07 Adults do enough to prevent† 0.36 AB 0.32A 0.44B Adults intervene† 0.58 0.34 0.09 Adult interventions are effective 2.26 2.11A 1.89A I reported and adult responded† 0.80 0.67 0.27 Note. Means in rows sharing superscripts are NOT significantly different at p < .05. Bolded = mean (standard deviation). † Dichotomous variables. Numbers represent percent of individuals in the class who reported “yes” in response to the school bullying climate item. All other variables are mean scores. Table options For middle school students, a more nuanced pattern of findings emerged with respect to the High Physical/High Verbal and Verbal classes. Specifically, the High Physical/High Verbal class reported significantly higher levels of victimization as compared to the Verbal class; however, they reported similar levels of internalizing problems (no significant difference). Recall that the Verbal class included significantly more girl than boy middle school students. The Verbal class tended to report significantly lower levels of victimization as compared to the High Physical/High Verbal class, which suggests that girls who reported using verbal bullying techniques and ignoring may have experienced less victimization than their highly physical and verbal bullying (predominantly boy) counterparts. The similar levels of internalizing problems across the High Physical/High Verbal and Verbal classes suggests that internalizing problems are a robust characteristic of bullying, and are evident for both boys and girls. Additionally, the High Physical/High Verbal class differed from the High Involvement class. Their differential relations to social–emotional factors further validated them as distinct classes. Specifically, compared to the High Involvement class, students characterized by the High Physical/High Verbal class reported significantly less victimization and internalizing problems. 3.4. Perceptions of safety and belonging 3.4.1. Middle school As indicated in Table 5 (see social-emotional factors), the middle school students in the Low Involvement class reported feeling the safest and reported the highest levels of belonging as compared to the other three classes (ps < .05). However, the Verbal class and the Low Involvement class did not significantly differ on reports of safety. The Verbal class reported significantly more safety than the High Involvement class, yet was not significantly different when compared to the High Physical/High Verbal class. Moreover, the High Physical/High Verbal class and the High Involvement class did not significantly differ on reports of safety, thereby suggesting potentially comparable risk as these two classes felt the least safe. The youth in all three bullying classes (High Involvement, Verbal, and High Physical/High Verbal) reported similarly low levels of belonging (did not significantly differ); highlighting the association between any bullying and feeling that one does not belong. In sum, compared to those in the Low Involvement class, those in the remaining three bullying classes (High Involvement, Verbal, and High Physical/Verbal) viewed the bullying climate as poor — feeling less safe and less belonging. In terms of school bullying climate (Table 5), students in the High Physical/High Verbal and High Involvement classes did not significantly differ from each other on the item “bullying is not a problem;” both classes perceived bullying as problematic. Alternatively, individuals in the Low Involvement and Verbal classes tended to report “bullying is not a problem” significantly more than students characterized by the High Physical/High Verbal and High Involvement classes. The findings regarding “Not witnessing bullying” mirrored those of perceived safety. Importantly, individuals in the Verbal class reported “I have not witnessed bullying” significantly more than individuals in the High Involvement class but were as likely to have reported this item as individuals in the High Physical/High Verbal class (no significant difference). Those in the High Physical/High Verbal and the High Involvement class were not significantly different on reports of not witnessing bullying. Across the safety and witnessing bullying findings, a pattern emerged such that individuals in the High Involvement class fared the worst, followed by those in the High Physical/High Verbal and then Verbal classes. When asked if they think that “adults do enough to prevent bullying,” students in the classes with higher self-reported aggressive bullying (i.e., Verbal, High Physical/High Verbal, and High Involvement) responded somewhat similarly (no significant differences, see Table 5). Importantly, less than half of all students – Low Involvement bullying class included – reported that “adults do enough to prevent bullying.” Thus, irrespective of bullying classification, most middle school youth were dissatisfied with adults' bullying prevention efforts. Perceptions that “adults intervene when they see bullying” aligned with bullying classes such that the Low Involvement class perceived the most intervention, followed by the Verbal class, the High Physical/High Verbal, and then the High Involvement class, who perceived the least intervention (ps < .05). Youth across the bullying classes (Verbal, High Physical/High Verbal, and High Involvement) there were no significant differences in response to the item “adult interventions are effective.” When students reported bullying behaviors to an adult, those in the Low Involvement class were significantly more likely than all other classes to report that the adult responded, whereas those in the High Involvement class were significantly less likely than all other classes to report that the adult responded. 3.4.2. High school As depicted in Table 6, findings for high school students' perceptions of safety and belonging were somewhat similar to middle school students; those in the Low Involvement class felt the safest, followed by those in the Verbal and the High Involvement class (p < .05). The High Involvement class reported feeling significantly lower levels of belonging than the Verbal and Low Involvement classes, whereas the Verbal and the Low Involvement class reported similar levels of belonging (no significant difference). This result is unlike the finding for middle school students' self-reported belonging; all three bullying classes (Verbal, High Physical/High Verbal, and High Involvement) reported similarly low levels of belonging. For the high school students, individuals in the Verbal class – in spite of their bullying behaviors – enjoyed a sense of belonging comparable to individuals in the Low Involvement class. Similar to the findings for middle school, high school students in the Low Involvement class reported the most positive view of the school's bullying climate relative to the more bullying classes (Verbal and High Involvement). Students in the Low Involvement class were significantly more likely to report “bullying is not a problem” and “not witnessing bullying” compared to student characterized by the Verbal and High Involvement classes. Students characterized by the Verbal class were significantly more likely to report “bullying is not a problem” and “not witnessing bullying” as compared to students characterized by the High Involvement class. Consistent with the middle school students, less than half of the high school youth reported that “adults do enough to prevent bullying”. Perceptions of adults intervening aligned with the classes; the Low Involvement class perceived the most intervention, followed by the Verbal class and the High Involvement class (ps < .05). Youth across the Verbal and High Involvement classes reported that “adult interventions are effective.” When students reported bullying behaviors to an adult, those in the Low Involvement class were the most likely to report that the adult responded (followed by those in the Verbal class), whereas those in the High Involvement class were the least likely to report that the adult responded (ps < .05).