Gender, Strain, and Bullying: The Differential Influence of Strain on Offending and Victimization among Adolescents.

• In Event: Roundtable: Youth Violence

Abstract

Recent, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (2016) called bullying a major public health problem. Limited research has explored gender in bullying through General Strain Theory (Cullen, Unnever, Hartman, Turner, and Agnew 2008; DeCoster and Zito 2010; Hay, Meldrum, and Mann 2010; and Patchin and Hinduja 2011). These researchers created measures of strain that either separated effects for males and females (Cullen et al. 2008) or controlled for gender (Hay et al. 2010) yet Decoster and Zito (2010) measured strains scales within gender. The current study will expand on this notion that theorists may have ignored gender differences when creating theoretical constructs as proposed by Chesney-Lind (2014). This research focuses on the influence of General Strain theory on bullying in a national sample of middle and high school age students. Bullying will include both offending and victimization outcomes. In addition, being a victim of bullying will be considered a strain for understanding offending. Constructs of strain will be developed separately for males and females and separate analyses will be conducted for each. It is expected that gender differences will emerge for the conceptual meaning of strain and will have implications for both offending and possibly victimization as well.

Authors

• Jeb Booth, Salem State University

• Amanda Howerton-Orcutt, Salem State University