Adulthood Impacts of Involvement in Bullying in First Grade

• In Event: 2-145 - Consequences of bullying and peer victimization

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Bullying is common among school-age youth with prevalence rates ranging from 18-31% (Rivara & Le Menestrel, 2016). Much is known about the concurrent and short-term effects of bullying, including impacts on a range of social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Increasingly, research has also begun examining long-term effects of bullying involvement, with studies finding impacts on physical and mental health, criminal justice system involvement, and educational and economic success in adulthood (e.g., Gibb et al., 2011; McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015). However, these findings are limited in important ways. Specifically, the majority of these studies have failed to examine: a) the co-occurrence of bullying and victimization, b) bullying behaviors prior to 3rd grade, c) potential indirect pathways between early bullying experiences and outcomes in adulthood. This study addresses these limitations by examining the effects of bullying and peer victimization in first grade on school performance in middle and high school and success in early adulthood.
Hypotheses: Based on prior work, we hypothesize that there will be at least three classes of youth who vary in their level of involvement in bullying/victimization in first grade. In turn, we suspect that youth with higher levels of involvement in bullying/victimization will be more likely to have low academic achievement in middle and high school and limited success in adulthood.
Study Population: Participants were a cohort of 678 children from 9 urban elementary schools, who participated in a randomized controlled trial of two school-based universal preventive interventions.
Method: The current study used data on peer nominations of bullying and peer victimization collected in first grade; reading and math achievement from standardized tests, teacher-reported GPA, and suspensions/expulsions collected annually in grades 6-11; and measures of adult success including on-time high school graduation, enrollment in postsecondary education, criminal justice system involvement, and presence of a drug use disorder. These data will be included as indicators in latent class/profile analysis and latent transition analysis. Exploratory mediation models will also be presented.
Results: Results of a latent profile analysis of peer nomination items identified 3 profiles: a no/low involvement class (72% of sample), a moderate bully-victims class (23%), and a high bully-victims class (5%). Longitudinal latent profile analysis of academic achievement identified 3 classes: a low achieving class (34.1%), moderate achieving class (46.0%), and a moderately high achieving class (19.9%). A latent class analysis of adult success identified 2 classes: a low success class (39.2%) and moderate success class (60.8%). Results indicated that youth who were members in the no/low involvement class were less likely to be in the moderate achieving class (Est. = -1.4, SE=0.47, p=.003) and more likely to be in the moderate adult success class (Est.=1.9, SE=0.66, p=.004) compared to youth in the high bully-victim class. Findings highlight how early involvement in bullying increases risk for a host of difficulties that ultimately affect quality of life and economic self-sufficiency in adulthood. Findings have implications for early intervention efforts designed to strengthen children’s social-behavioral skills prior to and during early elementary school.

Authors

• Amie Bettencourt, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• Rashelle Jean Musci, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jill A. Rabinowitz, Johns Hopkins University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicholas S. Lalongo, Johns Hopkins University
  Non-Presenting Author