The Effect of Cyberbullying and Traditional Bullying on English Language Learners’ National and Oriented Identities

Abstract

Bullying is defined as aggressive, repeated and intentional harm doing as a result of imbalance of power among individuals (Olweus, 1993). Both traditional bullying and cyberbullying towards ELLs, including minorities and refugees, increased immensely as a result of recent political events in the U.S. (Peker, 2016). ELLs are the most exposed victims of bullying due to language barriers in responding to bullies, which affects their identities, as they adapt to and settle in their new community. However, little research has addressed the bullying victimization of racial and ethnic minority students, although 54% of Asians and 34% of Latinos have been bullied in classrooms compared to 31% of White students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate bullying victimization and L2 identity among the adult ELLs in the U.S. The quantitative data were collected from 1464 ELLs through an adapted survey consisting of five-point Likert scale items. The quantitative data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results indicated that cyberbullying was a more powerful factor than traditional bullying affecting both national and oriented ELL identities.