Gender Identity, Gender-Typed Personality Traits and School Bullying: Victims, Bullies and Bully-Victims

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that gender identity is related to children’s adjustment and well-being. In the current study, involvement in school bullying was our indicator of well-being, and we tested how gender identity and gender typing measures are related to victims, bullies and bully-victims. The relations between these variables were examined with a sample of Spanish 10–12 year-old schoolchildren (n = 445). Multinomial regression analyses examined the associations among these three roles in bullying with four measures of gender identity (gender typicality, gender contentment, felt pressure, and intergroup bias) and two measures of gender typing (masculine and feminine personality traits). The results revealed that victimization is associated with low gender typicality and also with feminine traits, while perpetration is related with felt pressure to gender conformity and masculine traits. Bully-victim involvement is associated with lack of gender contentedness and masculine traits. These findings suggest that perceiving self as being a typical member of the same sex group is a protective factor for victimization, whereas felt pressure to conform to the cultural stereotypes about gender, self-attribution of masculine traits and lack of satisfaction with one’s gender are risk factors for perpetration. Implications for practice are discussed.