Peer Victimization and School Safety: The Role of Coping Effectiveness

Abstract

Peer victimization is a documented antecedent of poor mental health outcomes for children and adolescents. This article explored the role of coping effectiveness in the association between victimization and perceived school safety. A sample of urban middle school students (N = 509) in the southeastern United States were surveyed regarding victimization, coping behaviors, and school climate. Data analysis were conducted in Mplus (Version 6.1) with a Bayesian analytic approach that allowed for incorporation of findings from a previous study using comparable measures (Varjas, Henrich, & Meyers, 2009). The findings supported a hypothesized buffering effect of coping effectiveness on the association between victimization and school safety. Unexpectedly, there was a suppressing indirect effect of coping effectiveness on the association between victimization and safety. These findings are discussed in terms of the importance of participatory action models of research and understanding developmental trends in children's coping behavior.

Keywords:

• coping behavior
• peer victimization
• bullying
• school safety
• school violence
• middle school
• Bayesian statistics

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank all of the students who were willing to share their knowledge and perceptions of bullying in schools. We also thank the school district administrators, school counselors, and teachers for allowing us to administer surveys to their students. Some of the findings and data mentioned in this article were presented at the 2011 Convention for the International School Psychology Association, 2011 Convention for the International Bullying Prevention Association, 2012 Convention for the National Association for School Psychology, and 2012 Convention for the American Education Research Association.