I know it when I see it: How urban Latinx parents describe bullying

Abstract

Bullying is known to have negative impacts on students’ mental, physical, and emotional health. As many as one in four students experience bullying at some point during the school year. These experiences of bullying can lead to lower academic performance, decreased attendance, and increased behavioral problems. Identifying, preventing, detecting, and responding to bullying cannot be addressed in isolation, as it takes a community approach to lessen the prevalence of bullying, and a critical component of this community is parents. Parental support and connectedness can help mitigate the adverse outcomes of bullying. This study examined parent perceptions of bullying in a majority Latinx urban school. Evidence suggests that bullying is a concern among minority groups as they are at greater risk for victimization in schools. Thus, this research examined how Latinx parents described bullying as it affects their children. This research utilized a skip-logic survey with quantitative and qualitative items to identify themes and patterns as to how Latinx parents defined bullying as it affects their children. The findings from this research denoted that a total of 52.9% of parents indicated that their child had been bullied at school. In this study, there was a clear difference in how the parents of male and female students described bullying experiences. Parents of females indicated that their child experienced verbal/relational bullying, while parents of male students referred to physical bullying. Implications for practice should focus on district efforts to promote collaboration between school and home to improve communication about bullying and expectations needed to identify, prevent, detect, and respond to bullying. Recommendations for future research should include longitudinal research with minority populations to better understand the impact bullying has on this community with unique needs.