Prestige norms of moral disengagement, prejudice, and ethnic bullying: a study among Italian early adolescents

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore the association between prestige norms of moral disengagement and ethnic bullying among Italian early adolescents. Prestige norms of moral disengagement were also examined as possible moderator of the association between individual prejudice and ethnic bullying. Participants were 742 sixth to eighth graders attending multiethnic schools in Italy (49.7% girls), all of Italian heritage, who answered peer and self-report measures. In multilevel models, individual levels of moral disengagement were associated with ethnic bullying, and prestige norms of moral disengagement (classroom level) moderated (cross-level interaction) the association between xenophobic prejudice and ethnic bullying was significant only for high levels of prestige norms. Results highlight the importance of individual prejudices in ethnic bullying and suggest that the processes of socialization of cognitive distortions within peer groups are complex, providing useful insights for interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic bullying
• prestige norms of moral disengagement
• prejudice
• tolerance

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the students, teachers, and school administrators who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Six participants did not report their gender. Four did not define themselves as male or female; for them, gender was treated as a missing data in the analyses including gender as dichotomic variable.

Additional information

Funding

This work research project was supported by the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (Ministry of Education, University and Research, Italy) [PRIN 2017, nr. 20173E3Z7W_002]., and by the Centro di Ricerca Dinamiche Evolutive ed Educative (C.R.I.d.e.e.), Catholic University of the Sacred Heart [R1074400003].