Not just black and white: peer victimization and the intersectionality of school diversity and race.

Abstract

Although bullying is a prevalent issue in the United States, limited research has explored the impact of school diversity on types of bullying behavior. This study explores the relationship between school diversity, student race, and bullying within the school context. The participants were African American and Caucasian middle school students (n = 4,581; 53.4% female). Among the participants, 89.4% were Caucasian and 10.6% were African American. The research questions examined the relationship between school diversity, student race and bullying behaviors, specifically race-based victimization. The findings suggested that Caucasian middle school students experience more bullying than African American students generally, and specifically when minorities in school settings. Caucasian students also experienced almost three times the amount of race-based victimization than African American students when school diversity was held constant. Interestingly, African American students experienced twice the amount of race-based victimization than Caucasian students when in settings with more students of color. The present study provides insight into bullying behaviors across different contexts for different races and highlights the need to further investigate interactions between personal and environmental factors on the bulling experiences of youth.