Sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescents are more likely to become victims of bullying and harassment than heterosexual, cisgender adolescents, but little is known about the contextual details of ...these victimization experiences. This study aims to examine by whom and where adolescents are bullied or harassed, to whom adolescents report such victimization, and whether these experiences differ between SGM and heterosexual, cisgender adolescents.
Participants in this nationally representative study were 29,879 students (mean age = 14.1) from 136 Dutch middle/high schools across grades 7–12 (14.5% sexual minority, 2.7% gender minority) who completed a survey about their school-based experiences.
Perpetrators of victimization of SGM students were more often teachers and school staff compared with heterosexual, cisgender adolescents. Furthermore, SGM students experienced victimization in private locations (in the rest- or changing rooms/parking lots, at home), more often than heterosexual, cisgender students. Finally, SGM students felt less safe than their heterosexual, cisgender peers to report these experiences to teachers or parents, and were more likely to report their experiences to the police or the school janitor. SGM students who reported victimization experiences were less likely to receive support: the problems were less often acted on and persisted more often than those of heterosexual, cisgender students.
SGM adolescents are not only victimized more often, but also by different perpetrators (teachers, other school staff) and in more private places. Their victimization is also less likely to be recognized or acted on by those responsible for adolescent’s safety: teachers or parents.
Existing literature has mostly explained the occurrence of bullying victimization by individual socioemotional maladjustment. Instead, this study tested the person‐group dissimilarity model (Wright ...et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50: 523–536, 1986) by examining whether individuals’ deviation from developmentally important (relational, socio‐behavioral, and physical) descriptive classroom norms predicted victimization. Adolescents (N = 1267, k = 56 classrooms; Mage = 13.2; 48.7% boys; 83.4% Dutch) provided self‐reported and peer‐nomination data throughout one school year (three timepoints). Results from group actor–partner interdependence models indicated that more person‐group dissimilarity in relational characteristics (fewer friendships; incidence rate ratios IRRT2 = 0.28, IRRT3 = 0.16, fewer social media connections; IRRT3 = 0.13) and, particularly, lower disruptive behaviors (IRRT2 = 0.35, IRRT3 = 0.26) predicted victimization throughout the school year.
There is a long history of research among adolescents who are minoritized and marginalized for their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression (SOGIE). However, it remains unclear how we can ...best conceptualize and assess SOGIE in adolescence, resulting in different subpopulations and findings across studies. Addressing this issue, we present a narrative literature review of the conceptualization and assessment of SOGIE, and provide recommendations for conceptualizing and operationalizing these concepts. Our review indicated that most research with adolescent populations still almost exclusively assesses isolated dimensions of sexuality and gender (e.g., attraction but not identity). We argue that to make research inclusive and equitable, scholars are required to make clear substantiated decisions and be transparent about the SOGIE dimensions and, thus, subpopulations they represent.
A positive, prosocial classroom climate is associated with improved social competence and academic achievement, as well as with decreased internalizing problems and antisocial behavior in children. ...It is expected that motivation to behave prosocially is needed to achieve a prosocial climate in the classroom, and that such motivation can be enhanced through three components of self-determination theory (SDT): competence, relatedness, and autonomy. The goal of this protocol is to describe the design of a study aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of a classroom-based program based on SDT components promoting a prosocial classroom climate.
A cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to examine the effectiveness of the classroom-based program Meaningful Roles, aiming to improve prosocial classroom climate through increasing children's intrinsic prosocial motivation, stimulated by increasing social autonomy, social competence, and social relatedness. A multi-informant (i.e., children, teachers, and school leaders) and multi-method (i.e., questionnaires and focus groups) approach will be used to assess primary outcomes (i.e., prosocial behavior, intrinsic (prosocial) motivation, social autonomy, social competence, and social relatedness) and secondary outcomes (i.e., school wellbeing, social position, bullying, victimization, and civic skills), as well as moderators (i.e., working elements, child, teacher, school, and program characteristics, and program integrity).
The current study will provide information on the effectiveness of a classroom-based program promoting a prosocial classroom climate. It is of crucial importance that the school environment can provide a positive, prosocial classroom climate in which children feel safe and can achieve optimal social and academic competence and wellbeing.
ClinicalTrials ( NCT05891067 ).
Research describes several sexual and gender identity-based microaggressions that sexual and gender minority (SGM) people might experience. We aimed to examine the occurrence of different sexual and ...gender identity-based microaggressions among SGM youth and to identify differences by sexual and gender identity, and sex assigned at birth. Open-ended questions about daily experiences were coded for 16 types of sexual and gender identity-based microaggressions in two daily diary studies among Dutch SGM youth (Study 1: N = 90, M age = 17.64 SD = 1.78; Study 2: N = 393, M age = 18.36 SD = 2.65). Several types of microaggressions were identified, and there was sizable variability in the reported frequency. Overall, lesbian women and bisexual youth were less likely to report microaggressions than gay youth. Bisexual youth were less likely to report use of heterosexist or transphobic terminology than gay youth and youth assigned male at birth were less likely to report invalidation of LGBTQ identity than youth assigned female at birth. Last, gender minority youth were more likely to report familial microaggressions, invalidation of LGBTQ identity, and threatening behaviors than cisgender youth. Overall, this study provides empirical support using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods for theorized typologies of microaggressions among Dutch SGM youth.
Bullying is known to be associated with social status, but it remains unclear how bullying involvement over time relates to social position (status and affection), especially in the first years at a ...new school. The aim of this study was to investigate whether (the development of) bullying and victimization was related to the attainment of status (perceived popularity) and affection (friendships, acceptance, rejection) in the first years of secondary education (six waves). Using longitudinal data spanning the first- and second year of secondary education of 824 adolescents (51.5% girls;
M
ag
e
T1 = 12.54,
SD
= 0.45) in the SNARE-study, joint bullying and victimization trajectories were estimated using parallel Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA). The four trajectories (decreasing bully, stable high bully, decreasing victim, uninvolved) were related to adolescents’ social position using multigroup analysis that examined differences in slope and intercepts (T1 and T6) of social positions, and indicated that the relative social position of the different joint trajectories was determined at the start of secondary education and did not change over time, with one exception: adolescents continuing bullying were besides being popular also increasingly rejected over time. Although bullying is functional behavior that serves to optimize adolescents’ social position, anti-bullying interventions may account for the increasing lack of affection that may hinder bullies’ long-term social development.
Although anti-bullying interventions are often effective, some children continue to be victimized. To increase knowledge of potential factors that might impede children’s benefiting from an ...anti-bullying intervention, we examined potential reasons for individual differences in victimization trajectories during a group-based anti-bullying intervention. Data stem from a five-wave survey among 9122 children (7–12 years old; grades 2–5) who participated in the KiVa anti-bullying intervention (
n =
6142) or were in control schools (
n =
2980 children). Three trajectories were found in the intervention sample, representing children who experienced stable high, decreasing, or stable low/no victimization. A two-trajectory model of high and low trajectories represented the control sample best. Multinomial regressions on the intervention sample showed that children who experienced particularly high levels of peer rejection, internalizing problems, and lower quality parent-child relationships decreased less in victimization; thus these characteristics appeared to contribute to persistent victimization. The results call for tailored strategies in interventions aiming to reduce victimization for more children.
There is mixed evidence for depression socialization, a process by which friends affect each other’s level of depressive symptoms. The current study examined whether adolescents’ baseline depressive ...symptoms and three dimensions of autonomous functioning (autonomy, peer resistance, and friend adaptation) make adolescents more or less sensitive to depression socialization, and how these dimensions of autonomous functioning were connected. In this preregistered, two-wave longitudinal study, participants completed questionnaires on depressive symptoms, autonomy, and peer resistance and participated in a task to assess friend adaptation. Participants were 416 Dutch adolescents (
M
age
= 11.60, 52.8% girls) across 230 close friend dyads. In contrast to expectations, results showed no significant depression socialization nor significant moderation. Furthermore, autonomy and peer resistance were related but distinct constructs, and not related to friend adaptation. These findings suggest that there is no depression socialization in early adolescence, regardless of level of autonomous functioning.
Bullying can be differentiated from other types of peer aggression by four key characteristics: frequency, intensity, power imbalance, and goal‐directedness. Existing instruments, however, usually ...assess the presence of these characteristics implicitly. Can self‐report instruments be refined using additional questions that assess each characteristic? We examined (a) what proportion of children classified as victims by the commonly used Revised Olweus’ bully/victim questionnaire (BVQ) also experienced the characteristics of bullying, and (b) the extent to which the presence of the characteristics was associated with emotional (affect, school, and classroom well‐being), relational (friendship, defending), and social status (popularity, rejection) adjustment correlates among victims. Using data from 1,738 students (Mage = 10.6; grades 5–8), including 138 victims according to the BVQ, the results showed that 43.1% of the children who were classified as victims by BVQ experienced all the four characteristics of bullying. Frequency ratings of victimization did not capture experiences that involved a power imbalance. Victims who reported all four key characteristics had greater emotional, relational, and social status problems than victims who did not report all characteristics. Thus, researchers who focus on victimization for diagnostic and prevention purposes can enrich self‐report measurements of bullying victimization by adding questions that assess the characteristics explicitly.
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