Middle school bullying and sexual violence: Measurement issues & etiological mod

描述(申请人提供)：学校已将防止欺凌作为解决校园暴力的灵丹妙药。这种防止欺凌的方法忽略了性暴力/性骚扰，但已经成为学校管理人员、家长和教师更喜欢的话题。虽然这是一个实用的解决方案，但它忽略了这样一个事实，即 没有经验支持在小学或中学预防欺凌的努力与随着时间的推移性暴力、实施或受害行为的减少有关。事实上，在澳大利亚，越来越多的数据表明，这种方法实际上并不有效(Rigby，2004)。因此，研究欺凌行为/受害和性暴力的重叠仍然至关重要，以便为我们美国学校的性暴力预防提供信息。本研究首次全面考察了初中生欺凌经历与同发和随后的性暴力之间的关系。 本研究采用一个社会生态框架来探索欺凌经历和性暴力的风险和保护因素，在性暴力中，青少年的行为是由一系列嵌套的背景系统塑造的，包括家庭、同龄人和学校环境(Brofenbrenner，1977,1979；Heise，1998；CDC，2004)。生态视角为研究这些社会背景和对行为发展的影响的综合影响提供了一个概念框架。欺凌被概念化为包括辱骂， 取笑、散布谣言、口头威胁和社会攻击。性暴力被概念化为包括性胁迫、性骚扰和恐同取笑。参与者将包括来自五个学区的140个教室的大约3500名中学生(6到8年级)和他们来自两个学区的老师。样本是根据种族(40%的黑人学生)和经济状况(从0%到60%的低收入者)故意选择的。学生和教师将在多个时间点完成调查 通过三年的数据收集，以评估各种欺凌态度和行为、欺凌和受害的频率、性骚扰受害和施暴，以及拟议风险的衡量(例如，愤怒、对暴力的态度)和保护因素(例如，同理心)。验证性因素分析将被用来检验多种形式的欺凌和性暴力的心理测量学维度，涉及多个告密者(自我、同伴和教师)。将使用分层线性建模来识别欺凌行为、受害和目击以及性暴力实施和受害的轨迹。此外，HLM将规定确定来自多个社会影响层面的欺凌和性暴力经历的独特和共同风险(例如，愤怒、对暴力的态度、对暴力的同伴支持、虐待儿童的经历)和保护性因素(例如，同理心、对父母的依恋)。将进行焦点小组和与学生和教师的访谈，以阐明有关欺凌和性暴力行为之间的联系的更多信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Schools have taken up bullying prevention as the panacea for school violence. This bullying prevention approach ignores sexual violence / harassment, but has gained momentum as a more palatable topic for school administrators, parents, and teachers. Although this is a practical solution, it ignores the fact that there exists no empirical support that bullying prevention efforts in elementary or middle school are associated with decreases in sexual violence perpetration or victimization over time. In fact, in Australia data are emerging that this approach is in fact not effective (Rigby, 2004). Thus, it remains critical to examine the overlap of bullying perpetration / victimization and sexual violence in order to inform sexual violence prevention in our US schools. This proposed study is the first comprehensive examination of the association between bullying experiences and co-occurring and subsequent sexual violence among middle school students. This proposed study uses a social ecological framework to explore the risk and protective factors of bullying experiences and sexual violence in which adolescent behavior is shaped by a range of nested contextual systems, including family, peers, and school environments (Brofenbrenner, 1977, 1979; Heise, 1998; CDC, 2004). The ecological perspective provides a conceptual framework for investigating the combined impact of these social contexts and influences on behavioral development. Bullying is conceptualized to include namecalling, teasing, rumor spreading, verbal threats, and social aggression. Sexual violence is conceptualized as including sexual coercion, sexual harassment, and homophobic teasing. Participants will include approximately 3,500 middle school students (6th through 8th grade) in 140 classrooms across five cohorts and their teachers from two school districts. The sample was selected deliberately to be ethnically (40% Black Students) and economically (range from 0% to 60% low income). Students and teachers will complete surveys at multiple time points across three years of data collection to assess a wide range of bullying attitudes and behaviors, frequency of bullying perpetration and victimization, sexual harassment victimization and perpetration, and measures of proposed risk (e.g., anger, attitudes toward violence) and protective factors (e.g., empathy). Confirmatory factor analysis will be used to examine psychometric dimensions of multiple forms of bullying and sexual violence across multiple informants (self, peer, and teacher). Hierarchical linear modeling will be used to identify trajectories of bullying perpetration, victimization, and witnessing, and sexual violence perpetration and victimization. In addition, HLM will provide for the identification of unique and shared risk (e.g., anger, proattitudes toward violence, peer supports for violence, child abuse experiences) and protective factors (e.g., empathy, attachment to parents) of bullying and sexual violence experiences emerge from multiple levels of social influence. Focus groups and interviews with both students and teachers will be conducted to elucidate additional information regarding the connection between bullying and sexual violence perpetration.