Disproportionate Bullying Victimization and Perpetration by Disability Status, Race, and Gender: A National Analysis

Abstract

Bullying is a widespread problem in schools that has been linked to poor psychological, social, and academic outcomes for school-aged children. Individual risk factors such as disability status, race/ethnicity, and gender increase the likelihood of involvement in bullying behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore disproportionate bullying victimization and perpetration utilizing data from all US public schools as reported to the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. We used data from over 90,000 US public schools. All schools reported bullying-related incidents by race, gender, and disability status. We calculated school-level risk ratios and estimated a series of robust variance estimation models to evaluate disproportionate bully-related discipline incidents. We found that students with disabilities, Black students, and Hispanic students were significantly more likely to be victims of bullying (e.g., students with disabilities were 32% more likely of being a victim of bullying than their peers without disabilities). Students with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, and male students were all also significantly more likely to be disciplined for bullying (e.g., students with disabilities were over 41% more at risk than their peers without disabilities). The results reiterate that youth from traditionally marginalized backgrounds are at escalated risk for bullying involvement, and they are more likely to experience bullying and be disciplined as a function of their disability, race or ethnicity, or gender.