An Ecological Examination of Risk and Protective Factors for Bullying during Early Adolescence

Introduction: Bullying among youth is an important public health issue. The presence of risk and promotive factors may increase or decrease the likelihood that adolescents will engage in bullying behaviors. To date, most research has focused on single risk and promotive factors, without considering how the effects of cumulative risks and cumulative promotive factors influence the perpetration of bullying behavior.    

Methods: Hierarchical multiple regression was used to examine the association between cumulative risks and promotive factors and bullying, and to test two models of  resilience (compensatory and risk-protective model) in a diverse sample of urban 7^th grade youth (mean age = 13 years; N = 196; 60% female; 40% African American). Guided by an ecological model, the cumulative risk and promotive factor measures included individual characteristics and peer, parental/familial, school and community influences. Based on findings in the initial models, the association between cumulative risk and promotive factors and bullying was examined by race/ethnicity.

Results: Findings differed by race/ethnicity. Higher cumulative risk was associated with higher levels of bullying for all youth. For African American youth, higher levels of promotive factors were associated with lower levels of bullying, and moderated the association between cumulative risks and bullying behavior.  These associations were not present for White youth.

Conclusions: Our results supported the risk-protective model of resilience for African American youth, and highlighted differences in the role of promotive factors (i.e., resources and assets) in this sample. Prevention programs focused on enhancing promotive factors may have a positive effect on bullying during early adolescence. We will discuss the implications of our findings and its’ application to the prevention of bullying during early adolescence.