The International Observatory on Academic Achievement - Documentary search

File number :
CS-PC-40e

Bibliographic reference :
Juvonen, J., Nishina, A., & Graham, S. (2000). Peer Harassment, Psychological Adjustment, and School Functioning in Early Adolescence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 349-359.

Abstract :

Peer harassment can have negative effects on the psychological and academic outcome of students who may feel victimized by it. Most studies that have looked into this issue investigated the effect of harassment on either psychological adjustment or school functioning.

The authors of this American study hypothesized that harassment can cause psychological adjustment problems which, in turn, can lead to school problems. To verify this hypothesis, the authors first tested a conceptual model to study concurrent relations among these three constructs. They also conducted a longitudinal analysis to determine the extent to which harassment can influence psychological adjustment and school functioning on the longer term.

Methodology
Overall, an ethnically diverse sample of 243 students aged 12 to 15 (7th and 8th grades) participated in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Each construct was assessed based on several indicators, including: (1) harassment through students’ perception of having been the victims of harassment and their recollections of harassment incidents; (2) psychological adjustment through self-esteem, self-reported depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness at school; and (3) school functioning through grade point average and the number of class hours missed.

To conduct the longitudinal analysis, a subgroup of the initial sample involving 106 students was formed. Since these students had already taken part in a study on victimization the previous year, the researchers were able to garner information on students’ perceptions of having been the victims of harassment, and on their feelings of loneliness and self-esteem (Time 1). A third indicator of school functioning, teacher ratings of student cooperativeness, was also added to Time 2 of the analysis.

Main Results
Results confirmed the indirect negative effect of harassment on school functioning. Self-perceived victimization of harassment can result in poor psychological adjustment, which, in turn, can compromise school functioning.

Therefore, the results of the first analysis confirmed the concurrent relationships among these constructs. But what of the long-term effect of harassment? First, the results revealed a moderate stability in students’ perception of harassment, feeling of loneliness and self-esteem. Four groups of students were identified, including one group of stable victims and one group of stable non-victims whose perceptions of harassment remained the same over the years. In addition, two other groups of students whose perceptions of harassment changed from one year to the next were identified as unstable (from harassment to absence of harassment, or vice versa).

Comparisons made among these groups suggested that the negative effects of harassment did not seem to persist although they affected psychological adjustment at the time harassment occurred. Indeed, students who perceived being harassed at Time 1 of the study but not at Time 2 did not necessarily exhibit more psychological adjustment problems at Time 2 than did students who did not perceive being the victims of harassment at Times 1 and 2.

The longitudinal analysis also confirmed the direct effect of harassment on school functioning. When indicators of harassment were combined with indicators of psychological adjustment (feelings of loneliness and self-esteem), an effect was observed on each of the three indicators of school functioning (grade point average, absenteeism, cooperativeness).

Links :
This journal is also available in electronic format. Publisher’s Website address: http://www.apa.org/journals/edu/"

Key Words :
Harassment, Psychological Adjustment, School Functioning, Perception of Victimization, Self-esteem, Feeling of Loneliness, Depressive Symptoms, Longitudinal Study, Newsletter11

Monitored Countries :
United States