Improving Measurement Tools for the Sociological Study of Aggression

• In Event: 434 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Youth Aggression and Problem Behavior

Abstract

Heightened attention to bullying in research and in the media has led to a proliferation of school climate surveys that ask students to report their level of involvement in repeated acts of aggression in which the aggressor has power over the victim. In this paper, we consider the implications of using a more generalized definition of aggression in a school climate survey. Using data from a sample of 810 students in a large public high school in New Jersey, we measured student levels of involvement in several types of aggression, without limiting the criteria to repeated acts or acts characterized by a power differential. We found that males were more likely than females to be involved as aggressors, victims, and victim-aggressors for verbal aggression, physical aggression, threats and damage to property. Females were more likely to be involved in social aggression. Few differences were observed in aggressive behaviors by grade but grade-level moderated the differences by gender for all types of aggression. Females were more likely than males to believe that other students in their school had been victimized in the last month.

Authors

• Christopher Donoghue, Montclair State University

• Alicia Raia-Hawrylak, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers