Abstract
Bullying is known to be associated with social status, but it remains unclear how bullying involvement over time relates to social position (status and affection), especially in the first years at a new school. The aim of this study was to investigate whether (the development of) bullying and victimization was related to the attainment of status (perceived popularity) and affection (friendships, acceptance, rejection) in the first years of secondary education (six waves). Using longitudinal data spanning the first- and second year of secondary education of 824 adolescents (51.5% girls; Mage T1 = 12.54, SD = 0.45) in the SNARE-study, joint bullying and victimization trajectories were estimated using parallel Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA). The four trajectories (decreasing bully, stable high bully, decreasing victim, uninvolved) were related to adolescents’ social position using multigroup analysis that examined differences in slope and intercepts (T1 and T6) of social positions, and indicated that the relative social position of the different joint trajectories was determined at the start of secondary education and did not change over time, with one exception: adolescents continuing bullying were besides being popular also increasingly rejected over time. Although bullying is functional behavior that serves to optimize adolescents’ social position, anti-bullying interventions may account for the increasing lack of affection that may hinder bullies’ long-term social development.
Highlights
In early adolescence, youths’ focal goal is to achieve a strong social position in the peer group
Differences in social position for all groups, with regard to both social status and affection, were comparable for T1 and T6. This indicates that the relative social position of the different joint trajectories was already determined at the start of secondary education
A strategy to attain a strong social position is by bullying others
Summary
Youths’ focal goal is to achieve a strong social position in the peer group. In the first place because adolescents experience important social, cognitive, and behavioral changes (Viau et al 2020) that make them increasingly susceptible to their peers’ perceptions about them and with “fitting in” (Veenstra and Laninga-Wijnen 2021). In many countries including the Netherlands, these developmental changes coincide with the transition from smaller primary schools to larger secondary schools around the ages of 12-14. The school transition is causing destabilization and re-organization of adolescents’ social landscape. Primary school friends might go to different secondary schools, and the selected secondary school is often located outside the trusted environment. Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2021) 50:1995–2006 victimization processes are related to adolescents’ social position in the first years of secondary education
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