Bullies, Gangs, Drugs, and School: Understanding the Overlap and the Role of Ethnicity and Urbanicity

Introduction: Recent media attention has increased interest in behavioral, mental health, and academic correlates of involvement in bullying. Yet, there have been relatively few studies examining the potential association between different patterns of bullying (i.e., bully, victim, or bully/victim) and involvement in violence, like weapon carrying or gang membership. The current study examined different subtypes of involvement in bullying and the association with significant health-risk behaviors, including involvement in violence and substance use, as well as academic problems. We were particularly interested in African American youth, as they are affected disproportionately by other health disparities, and often receive harsher punishments for disciplinary infractions (Skiba et al., 2002). 

Method: Data come from 58 Maryland high schools participating in a state-wide project focused on measuring and improving school safety.  Data were collected from 19,833 adolescents (50.3% female, 51.2% Caucasian, 31.0% African American) via a web-based survey administered in the spring of 2011. An average of 20.5 classrooms per school was randomly selected to participate in the data collection. Given that we specifically were interested in contrasting Caucasian and African American youth, we restricted the sample for the current analysis to 16,302 adolescents, of whom 37.8% were African American and 62.2% were Caucasian.

Results: A series of three-level HLM analyses revealed that bullies and bully/victims were generally at greatest of risk of being involved in violence, engaging in multiple types of substance use, and displaying academic problems. For example, compared to those that were not involved in bullying, bully/victims were almost 12 times as likely to have been a gang member and over 12 times as likely to have carried a weapon to school. The bullies were also at great risk, as they were approximately 5 times as likely to engage in these behaviors. Bully/victims were 8 times more likely than non-involved youth to use prescription drugs, 4.5 times more like to use cigarettes, over 3 times as likely to use marijuana and alcohol.

Discussion: These findings build on prior research regarding the behavioral risks associated with bullying, particularly among the subgroup of youth involved as bullies, as well as bully/victims. This study extended the line of previous research employing this bullying subgroup approach by examining more serious forms of involvement in violence, such as gang membership and weapon carrying, and exploring the potential moderated effects of student ethnicity and community context. We also demonstrated that these risks are present among high school youth (grades 9-12), who rarely have been the focus of research on bullying.