2021 Peer victimization and school disaffection(有中介有调节)

2021 Peer victimization and school disaffection(有中介有调节)569 British Journal of Educational Psychology(2013),83,569590?2012The British Psychological Societyhttp:/www.wendangku.net/doc/6c87267bd4d8d15abf234e84.html Peer victimization and school disaffection: Exploring the moderation effect of social support and the mediation effect of depressionBeno?t Galand*and Virginie HospelUniversiteCatholique de Louvain,Louvain-La-Neuve,BelgiumBackground.Peer victimization is associated with increased internalizing problems andreduced school adjustment.Research into the main effect and the buffering effect of socialsupport on these internalizing problems has produced inconsistent?ndings,and none hastested the buffering effect of social support on school adjustment.Moreover,recentstudies have underlined the importance of taking various sources of social support intoaccount.Aims.This study aims to test the relationships between peer victimization and schooldisaffection,the moderation effect of parental,peer and teacher social support,and themediation effect of depression.Sample.Four hundred seventh and eighth graders participated in this study.Method.Students?lled out a questionnaire assessing peer victimization,depression,academic self-ef?cacy,school disaffection,and perceived social support from parents,peers,and teachers.Results.Peer victimization was negatively associated with self-ef?cacy and positivelyassociated with school disaffection.Regression analyses showed a main negative effect ofsocial support(especially teacher support)on depression and school disaffection and apositive effect on self-ef?cacy.No signi?cant interactions emerged between victimizationand social support or between sources of social support.Path analyses indicated that theeffects of victimization on self-ef?cacy and school disaffection were fully mediated bydepression,but that the effects of social support are partially independent of depression.Multigroup analyses indicated that these relationships were parallel among boys and girls.Conclusions.The results of this study are consistent with the main effect model ofsocial support.They also highlight the importance of teacher support for schooladjustment.Peer victimization is a pervasive problem in most developed nations(Akiba,LeTendre, Baker,&Goesling,2002;Craig et al.,2009).Each year,about34%of students between11 and15years old are victims of a negative action(verbal,physical,or social)from their *Correspondence should be addressed to Beno?t Galand,Department of Psychology,UniversiteCatholique de Louvain,Place Cardinal Mercier,10,1348Louvain-La-Neuve,Belgium(e-mail:benoit.galanduclouvain.be).DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02077.x570Beno?t Galand and Virginie Hospelpeers at least once,according to the Health Behavior in School-aged Children international study(Craig&Harel,2004).Furthermore,about16%encounter repeated peer victimization(Due et al.,2005).These victimizations are associated with a range of internalizing problems among children and adolescents,for example,depression,anxiety,negative affectivity,suicidal ideation,psychological distress,loneliness,and somatization(Gini&Pozzoli,2009; Hodges&Perry,1999;Juvonen&Graham,2001;Olweus,1993;Rigby,2003;Roland, 2002).Moreover,a growing number of prospective and longitudinal studies have indicated that peer victimization predicts change in internalizing problems over time, even when previous adjustment problems are taken into account(Arseneault et al.,2006; Bond,Carlin,Thomas,Rubin,&Patton,2001;Fekkes,Pijpers,Fredriks,Vogels,& Verloove-Vanhorick,2006;Reijntjes,Kamphuis,Prinzie,&Telch,2010;Snyder et al., 2003).As the large majority of bullying and peer victimization occurs at school(Delfabbro et al.,2006),their potential impact on school adjustment is also a matter of concern. Several studies have found a negative association between peer victimization and some indicators of school adjustment such as absenteeism,achievement,or engagement (Hanish&Guerra,2002;Juvonen,Nishina,&Graham,2000).Peer victimization and school adjustmentSeveral studies have investigated the relationship between peer victimization and school adjustment,using a variety of indicators of this latter broad construct:achievement, academic self-ef?cacy,attendance,and school engagement.With regard to achievement,mixed?ndings emerge.On one hand,small negative associations were reported between peer victimization and achievement among elementary school children(Graham,Bellmore,&Mize,2006;Iyer,Kochenderfer-Ladd, Eisenberg,&Thompson,2010;Juvonen et al.,2000;Nishina,Juvonen,&Witkow,2005; Schwartz,Gorman,Nakamoto,&Toblin,2005).On the other hand,null or non-signi?cant associations were reported between peer victimization and achievement in kindergarten, in elementary school,and in middle school(Beran&Lupart,2009;Berthold&Hoover, 2000;Hanish&Guerra,2002;Kochenderfer&Ladd,1996a;Ma,Phelps,Lerner,&Lerner, 2009;Nansel et al.,2001).Various measures of achievement have been used(e.g.,grade-point average,self-reported grades,teacher rating of academic progress),with null effects more prevalent in studies with larger samples.Studies examining the links between peer victimization and academic self-ef?cacy report mixed results.Some found that victimized early adolescents had lower academic self-ef?cacy than non-victims(Paul&Cillessen,2003;Thijs&Verkuyten,2008)while no differences in perceived competence were reported between victims and non-victims among younger children(Boulton&Smith,1994;Ma et al.,2009).Results are more consistent with regard to the association between victimization and attendance,showing that some victimized students try to avoid school.Peer harassment was associated with higher absenteeism from school(Juvonen et al.,2000;Nishina et al., 2005;Parker&Asher,1987).Moreover,in a longitudinal study with two hundred5-and6-year-old children,Kochenderfer and Ladd(1996b)observed that victimization was a precursor of self-reported school avoidance(e.g.,Do you wish you didnt have to come to school?).This result was replicated in primary school with teacher rating of school avoidance(e.g.,Asks to leave the classroom;Buhs,Ladd,&Herald,2006).Finally,peer victimization has been found to be associated with reduced school engagement across studies using various measures and informants.Victimization wasPeer victimization and school disaffection571 found to be negatively correlated with liking school(Boulton,Chau,Whitehand, Amataya,&Murray,2009),school attachment(Wei&Williams,2004),self-reported classroom engagement(doing well in school work,doing homework,following rules, getting along with classmates,etc.;Nansel,Haynie,&Simons-Morton,2003),teacher rating of school engagement(e.g.,In my class,this student concentrates on doing her/ his schoolwork;Graham et al.,2006),and a latent variable composed of teacher rating of attitude and effort,school record of absences,and self-reported emotional and behavioural school engagement(Hoglund,2007).Similar?ndings emerged from a longitudinal study among elementary school children combining teacher rating of student enthusiastic participation and self-reported school avoidance(Iyer et al.,2010). However,because each of these studies conceptualized engagement differently,it is hard to get a clear picture of the strength of this association and of the theoretical processes underlying it.Taken together,these results show that only some facets of school adjustment are affected by peer victimization and highlight the importance of looking at speci?c indicators.This study focuses on two motivational constructs:academic self-ef?cacy (Bandura,1997)and school disaffection(Skinner,Furrer,Marchand,&Kindermann, 2008).Academic self-ef?cacy is close to perceived competence and refers to peoples beliefs about their capabilities and about the outcomes of their efforts in the academic domain(Usher&Pajares,2008).It has been well documented as a proximal predictor of achievement(Bandura,1997;Schunk&Pajares,2005).However,few studies have explored the relationship between peer victimization and academic self-ef?cacy, especially among adolescents.School engagement could be de?ned as the intensity and duration of commitment or involvement in academic activities,including emotional, cognitive,and behavioural dimensions(Fredricks,Blumenfeld,&Paris,2004).It has been documented as an important predictor of achievement and school drop-out(Appleton, Christenson,&Furlong,2008).Some scholars have argued that school engagement should be distinguished from its opposite,namely school disaffection(Skinner et al., 2008).This latter concept includes passivity,withdrawal,giving-up,distraction, boredom,anxiety,and frustration;it re?ects more than a lack of engagement (Skinner,Kindermann,&Furrer,2009).The concept of school disaffection seems well suited to assessing the academic correlates of peer victimization,and its multi-dimensional nature makes it possible to capture most aspects of engagement investigated in previous research(including school avoidance).Moreover,some results indicate that school disaffection fully mediates the relationship between victimization and achievement (Hoglund,2007;Iyer et al.,2010;Wei&Williams,2004).Main effect and stress-buffering effect of social supportAlthough peer victimization is associated with internalizing problems and school disaffection,social support is associated with well-being and school engagement(Rigby, 2000;Scholte,Engels,Overbeek,Kemp,&Haselager,2007).Recent studies underline the importance of accounting for a range of sources of social support(Chu,Saucier,& Hafner,2010)but research into the buffering effect of social support on internalizing problems has produced inconsistent?ndings(Baldry,2004;Rigby,2000),and there has been no test of the buffering effect of social support on school adjustment when internalizing problems are taken into account.Furthermore,it is unclear to what extent there are gender differences in these relationships(Hoglund,2007;Lopez&DuBois, 2005).572Beno?t Galand and Virginie HospelThere are two differing theoretical models of the effect of social support(Cohen, Gottlieb,&Underwood,2000;Mittelmark,Aaro,Henriksen,Siqveland,&Torsheim,2004; Ystgaard,Tambs,&Dalgard,1999).The main effect model posits that a higher level of social support has a positive effect on psychological functioning for all individuals whatever the level of stress they are exposed to.The stress-buffering effect model postulates that social support acts as a protective factor against the adverse effect of negative life events on psychological well-being.Accordingly,the positive effect of social support should be stronger for people under high stress.In the context of school violence, Demaray,Malecki,and DeLong(2006)hypothesized that the stress-buffering effect model would be especially relevant for victims.Most studies report a main effect of social support on both peer victimization and internalizing problems,supporting the main effect model(Baldry,2004;Herrero,Estevez, &Musitu,2006).However,contradictory results were found for the stress-buffering effect model of social support in the relationship between victimization and internalizing problems.Some studies found no support for this buffering hypothesis(Martin&Huebner, 2007;Rigby,2000).Other studies reported a signi?cant interaction between victimization and social support on internalizing problems,but their results were inconsistent across sources of social support:interactions were found with friendssupport(Hodges,Boivin, Vitaro,&Bukowski,1999;Woods,Done,&Kalsi,2009),with parental support(Flouri& Buchanan,2002),with parental support but not with friendssupport(Bonanno&Hymel, 2010),and with friendssupport but not with parental support(Holt&Espelage,2007). Furthermore,some studies suggested that these interactions could differ by gender. Cheng,Cheung,and Cheung(2008)found a buffering effect of friendssupport,but not parental support,only among boys,while Stadler,Feifel,Rohrmann,Vermeiren,and Poustka(2010)found a buffering effect of parental support only among girls.So far,studies of the role of social support in bullying and victimization have mainly focused on parent and peer support(Delfabbro et al.,2006;Pellegrini,Bartini,&Brooks, 1999;Perren&Hornung,2005),showing that well-being is more strongly associated with parental support than with friendssupport(Bonanno&Hymel,2010;Cheng et al.,2008; Herrero et al.,2006;Holt&Espelage,2007).Very few studies of peer victimization have explored the effect of teacher support(Benhorin&McMahon,2008).Among the few exceptions,two studies using a1-item measure of teacher support found that it was associated with lower victimization rates(Furlong,Chung,Bates,&Morrison,1995; Rigby,2000),whereas a study using a more detailed measure of teacher support found no signi?cant association(Demaray&Malecki,2003).No study has explored the moderation effect of social support in the relation between peer victimization and school adjustment.Nevertheless,a growing body of research and theoretical propositions highlights the importance of supportive social relationships for academic self-ef?cacy and school engagement(Juvonen,2007;Martin&Dowson,2009; Wentzel,1998).Self-ef?cacy and engagement have been found to be positively associated with parental support(Bouffard,Vezeau,Chouinard,&Marcotte,2006;Murray,2009), peer acceptance(Buhs&Ladd,2001;Buhs et al.,2006;Wentzel&Asher,1995),and teacher support(Hamre&Pianta,2001;Hughes,Luo,Kwok,&Loyd,2008;Midgley, Feldlaufer,&Eccles,1989).Other research has indicated that each of these three sources of social support(parents,peers,and teachers)had an independent effect on engagement (Furrer&Skinner,2003),with the effect of teacher support stronger than the effect of peer support(Goodnow,1993;Ryan,Stiller,&Lynch,1994;Wentzel,1998).Implicitly or explicitly,most studies have used an additive model of social support sources,and very few have tested the possibility of an interaction between sources.Peer victimization and school disaffection573 Among the few exceptions,DuBois,Felner,Brand,Adan,and Evans(1992)found that the effect of teacher support on psychological distress was more pronounced when parental support was low.On the other hand,Wentzel(1998)found no signi?cant interactions between teacher,parental,and peer support on student engagement.Results based on median splits from Furrer and Skinner(2003)supported the idea of a cumulative but unequal contribution of these three sources of social support,but did not directly test interaction effects.Mediation effect of internalizing problemsPeer victimization is associated with both internalizing problems and with school disaffection.Consequently,internalizing problems might mediate the effect of victimiza-tion on school disaffection.In fact,some studies found that psychological distress mediated the relationship between peer harassment and absenteeism(Juvonen et al., 2000;Nishina et al.,2005),school engagement(Hoglund,2007),or achievement (Graham et al.,2006;Schwartz et al.,2005).Moreover,social support is documented as having an effect on both internalizing problems and school engagement(see above),but studies investigating the relationships between social support and engagement do not usually control for internalizing problems. It could be,however,thatas for peer victimizationthe effect of social support on school engagement is mediated by internalizing problems:social support sustains well-being and protects against internalizing problems,which in turn promotes self-ef?cacy and prevents school disaffection.Indeed,Wentzel(1998)found that psychological distress mediated the relationship between social support and school interest.As for school adjustment,conceptualization and operationalization of internalizing problemsdifferbetweenstudies,butthesedifferencesarerarelydiscussedinpeervictimization research,mostwriterstreating themasunproblematic.Indeed,contrarytowhatwas observed for school adjustment,results regarding the association between peer victimization and internalizing problems are very consistent throughout a large variety of measures and indicators.Building on the meta-analysis of Hawker and Boulton(2000),we examine whether depression mediates the relationship between peer victimization and self-ef?cacy,on one hand,andbetween peer victimization and schooldisaffection,on the other hand,as well as the relationship between social support and these two indicators of school adjustment. Gender differencesStudies of peer victimization,depression,and school engagement commonly report gender differences.Girls usually display more depressive symptoms(e.g.,Nolen-Hoeksema,1994)and higher school engagement(e.g.,Roeser,Eccles,&Sameroff, 1998).They also encounter less direct and physical victimization from peers(e.g., Olweus,1993).Results regarding social or relational victimization(e.g.,rumours, exclusion from a peer group)are less consistent.Some studies report a higher level among girls(e.g.,Crick&Bigbee,1998),but recent reviews report similar levels among boys and girls in the majority of studies(Card,Isaacs,&Hodges,2007;Crick et al.,2001).However, many studies making a distinction between different types of peer victimization do not provide information about construct validity(Furlong,Sharkey,Felix,Tanigawa,&Greif Green,2009);when available,this information often supports the use of a unifactorial victimization scale(Guerra,Williams,&Sadek,2011;Hartung,Little,Allen,&Page,2011). Latent class analyses also failed to identify subgroups of students based on victimization574Beno?t Galand and Virginie Hospeltype,but identi?ed subgroups based on the degree of victimization:a subgroup of students almost never victimized,a subgroup who are sometimes victimsmainly of some widespread types of aggression(i.e.,verbal and relational)and a subgroup who are frequently victims of all types of aggression(Nylund,Bellmore,Nishina,&Graham,2007; Wang,Iannotti,Luk,&Nansel,2010).More boys than girls were classi?ed in the frequently victimized subgroup.1Gender differences in the relations between victimization,depression,and disaffec-tion are more controversial.Some studies report that girls are more affected by peer victimization than boys(Graham et al.,2006;Hoglund,2007;Paul&Cillessen,2003). Hanish and Guerra(2002)also reported gender differences in patterns of emotional, social,behavioural,and academic functioning following peer victimization.Findings regarding gender differences in the effects of social support are inconsistent(Cheng et al., 2008;Rigby,2000).Other studies reported no differences between girls and boys in these relations(Baldry,2004;Herrero et al.,2006;Lopez&DuBois,2005;Nishina et al.,2005). No coherent picture emerged from these contradictory?ndings.To summarize,(a)there is a lack of evidence regarding the construct validity of differentiating different types of peer victimization and(b)?ndings on gender differences in the relations between the variables of interest in this study are inconclusive. Consequently,there is a need to further investigate the effects of gender in peer victimization,social support,depression,and school disaffection.Aims and hypothesesThe main goal of this study is to extend our understanding of the role of peer victimization and social support in internalizing problems and school engagement by comparing the main effect and buffering effect models of social support on depression,self-ef?cacy,and school disaffection.The contributions of three different sources of social supportnamely parents,peers,and teachersand their interaction effects are examined.Gender differences will also be investigated,together with the effect of social support on self-ef?cacy and school disaffection when depression is taken into account.We predict a negative association b