markus-spiske-QozzJpFZ2lg-unsplash.jpg

About the Study

The National Institute of Justice funded study aims to fill a critical gap in research on bias-based harassment by:

  • Identifying rates of bias-based harassment victimization and perpetration among adolescents. Bias-based harassment is harassment based on identity characteristics including race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and immigration status.

  • Identifying outcomes of bias-based harassment, including the impact of bias-based harassment on the psychological wellbeing of adolescents and school experiences.

  • Determining risk and protective factors that predict involvement in bias-based harassment as either a victim or a perpetrator. These risk and protective factors include individual, family, peer, school, and neighborhood/community factors.

This longitudinal study uses NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel. The panel includes adolescents from across the United States. There will be four sources of data collected for this study: two from the AmeriSpeak Panel (i.e., parent/guardian surveys and adolescent surveys), as well as community indicators from the Census and school-level indicators from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Study Rationale

U.S. national data highlights significant increases in bias-based harassment and crime

  • Reports of anti-Semitic incidents increased by 57% from 2016 to 2017¹.

  • Complaints of school-based racial harassment to the Department of Education increased by 25% from 2016 to 2017².

  • 29% of 9th and 24% of 11th graders have experienced identity-based harassment (i.e., race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability) on school property in the past year³. Among those students, 18% of 9th and 15% of 11th graders were harassed specifically due to their race, ethnicity, or national origin.

  • 10% of adolescents reported experiencing bullying because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation⁴.

There are pronounced effects on well-being and school functioning for victims of bias-biased harassment

  • Bias-based harassment is linked to depression, suicidal ideation and attempts, and substance use⁴˒⁵.

  • It is associated with decreased grade point average, educational aspirations, and increased truancy and school avoidance⁴˒⁶˒⁷.

  • Youth who experience multiple forms of bias-based harassment incur more pronounced effects on psychological and school functioning than youth harassed because of only one identity characteristic⁸˒⁹.

Despite these negative effects, and evidence that hate directed at youth with marginalized identities has increased in recent years¹º, there is a lack of comprehensive, longitudinal studies on school safety that focus on bias-based harassment, and consider what factors predict both victimization and perpetration. This leaves a significant gap in understanding the root causes of and contributors to bias-based harassment at school.

The Peer Experiences Project (PEP) will provide the first comprehensive longitudinal examination of the root causes of bias-based harassment, effects of bias-based harassment on psychological and school functioning, and associated risk and protective factors across individual, family, peer, school, and neighborhood/community factors. Results will identify modifiable factors that can promote adolescent well-being and guide modifications to existing evidence-based and the development of new school prevention programs to specifically target bias-based harassment.

 

References

  1. Anti-Defamation League. 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents. https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/2017-audit-of-anti-semitic-incidents. Published 2018.

  2. Klein R. Schools See Major Uptick in Racial Harassment, New Data Suggests. Huffington Post 2018.

  3. Austin G, Polik J, Hanson T, Zheng C. School climate, substance use, and student well-being in California, 2013-2015. Results of the fifteenth Biennial Statewide Student Survey, Grades 7, 9, and 11. San Francisco; 2016.

  4. Russell ST, Sinclair KO, Poteat VP, Koenig BW. Adolescent health and harassment based on discriminatory bias. American Journal of Public Health. 2012; 102(3):493-495.

  5. Price-Feeney M, Jones LM, Ybarra ML, Mitchell KJ. The relationship between bias-based peer victimization and depressive symptomatology across sexual and gender identity. Psychology of Violence. 2018;8:680-691.

  6. Turner H, Mitchell K, Jones L, Shattuck A. Assessing the impact of harassment by peers: Incident characteristics and outcomes in a national sample of youth. Journal of School Violence. 2017; 16:1-24.

  7. Sinclair KO, Bauman S, Poteat VP, Koenig B, Russell ST. Cyber and bias-based harassment: Associations with academic, substance use, and mental health problems. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2011; 50(5): 521-523.

  8. Mulvey KL, Hoffman AJ, Gonultas S, Hope EC, Cooper SM. Understanding experiences with bullying and bias-based bullying: What matters and for whom? Psychology of Violence. 2018; 8(6):702-711.

  9. Bucchianeri MM, Eisenberg ME, Wall MW, Piran N, Neumark-Sztainer D. Multiple types of harassment: Associations with emotional well-being and unhealthy behaviors in adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2013; 54:724-729.

  10. Southern Policy Law Center. Hate at School. Montgomery, AL: Southern Policy Law Center; 2019.