Attributions for Victimization in Ethnically Diverse Middle Schools

• In Event: 3-139 - Peer Ethnic Aggression and Victimization in Preadolescence and Adolescence

Integrative Statement

A good deal of peer victimization research is conducted in urban schools where multiple ethnic groups are represented, but very little of that research has systematically examined ethnicity-related context variables. In our research, we bring the ethnic context to the study of peer victimization. We do this by making a case for the importance of attributions as a theoretical framework and school ethnic diversity as a central context variable, both of which can aid our understanding of the dynamics of peer victimization. In previous research, we documented that students who blame themselves for victimization, labeled characterological self-blame (“it must be me”), feel worse and do more poorly in school than students who blame the situation or other people. Taking a person-centered approach, we examined patterns of attributions for victimization that included multiple causes and we tested whether more adaptive patterns were associated with more school diversity.
Participants were 4300 6th grade boys and girls (males = 49%) attending one of 26 middle schools in California that varied in ethnic diversity. The sample was 41% Latino, 26% White, 18% Asian, and 15% African-American. Students were presented with a vignette describing victimization (being harassed in the cafeteria) and then asked to rate their endorsement of 17 attributions reflecting what they would think if the incident happened to them. They also reported on how much victimization they had actually experienced at school that year. Each school’s diversity was calculated using an index such that high numbers indicated more diversity.
Latent class analysis (LCA) using Mplus documented that a 4-class model best fit the data (see Figure 1). The classes are best distinguished by the degree to which respondents endorsed characterological self-blame, with the least adaptive Class 4 appearing at the top and the more adaptive Classes 1 and 2 appearing at the bottom of Figure 1. A hierarchical multinomial logistic regression was performed to predict class membership. In this analysis class membership served as the categorical dependent variable (Class 4 as the reference group) with student characteristics (i.e., ethnicity, victimization, majority status in your school) as level-1 predictor, and school diversity as a level-2 predictor (see Table 1). The strongest predictors of class membership were previous experiences with victimization and ethnicity. Students who experienced more harassment and were members of the majority ethnic group in their school were less likely to be in the more adaptive low self-blame groups, and that was particularly true for African American students. At Level 2, non-diverse schools were associated with more self-blame.
Being a victim and a member of the majority ethnic group can make someone vulnerable to self-blaming attributions, in part because such youth deviate from the group norm to be numerically powerful. However, greater ethnic diversity promotes more attributional ambiguity that can ward off self-blaming tendencies. Greater diversity among ethnic groups who share the balance of power (no majority group) discourages attributions for social failure to the self, while allowing for attributions to external factors or other causes that have fewer psychological costs.
 

Author

• Sandra Graham, University of California, Los Angeles
  Presenting Author