Patterns of Aggression, Victimization, and Prosocial Behavior in Elementary School As Predictors of Academic Outcomes

Introduction: Peer victimization is common among school-age youth with prevalence rates between 30-60% in a school year. Involvement in peer victimization is associated with adjustment difficulties, including internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, peer rejection, and poor academic achievement. Although peer victimization occurs most often in schools, less is known about its longer-term impacts on school outcomes, such as academic achievement and suspensions/expulsions. In addition, youth differ in their patterns of aggression and victimization and these differences are associated with distinct adjustment problems. However, limited research has examined how subgroups of youth involved in peer victimization vary in school adjustment. Finally, studies comparing youth involved in peer victimization to uninvolved youth have tended to define this comparison group by a lack of aggression/victimization, ignoring their other behavioral characteristics. This study addresses these limitations by using measures of aggression, victimization, and prosocial behavior to identify classes of youth, and examine class differences in later academic achievement and suspensions/expulsions.

Method: Participants were a predominantly African-American (86%) sample of 318 fourth and fifth graders (45% male, Mean age = 10.4 years) attending six urban public elementary schools, who were part of a larger classroom-level preventive intervention study. Teachers completed ratings of aggression, victimization, and prosocial behavior for each child during the spring semester. Data on suspensions/expulsions and student performance on standardized math and reading tests were drawn from school records.

Results: Teacher ratings served as indicators of a latent class analysis. Three classes were identified: prosocial (11% of sample), aggressive-victims (30%), and normative youth (59%). Relations between class membership and academic achievement and suspensions were examined. Controlling for measures of academic achievement and suspensions from the year prior to teacher ratings of youth behavior and current grade and intervention condition, we examined class differences in performance on standardized math and reading assessments and suspensions/expulsions in the year after teacher ratings (fifth or sixth grade). Aggressive-victims were suspended/expelled more often than normative (p =.000) and prosocial (p =.002) youth, and had lower performance on math (p =.024) and reading (p = .025) assessments compared to normative youth. Prosocial youth also had significantly lower performance on math assessments than normative youth (p =.001).

Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of developing preventive interventions that target the specific needs of distinct subgroups of youth.