Longitudinal Examination of the Bullying-Sexual Violence Pathway across Early to Late Adolescence

Introduction: Bullying, homophobic name-calling, and sexual violence perpetration emerge during early adolescence and appear to be associated with one another both in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. These associations are explicitly described in the Bully-Sexual Violence Pathway theory (Espelage, Basile, & Hamburger, 2012; Espelage et al., 2015) where bullying perpetration was a predictor of sexual violence perpetration over a two-year middle school longitudinal study. Further, the association between bullying and sexual violence was moderated by homophobic name-calling perpetration among males; the link between bullying and sexual violence for males was strongest among students who reported directing homophobic epithets at other male or female students. It is not clear whether these findings would extend into later adolescence when sexual violence perpetration is more prevalent. Thus, the present study sought to replicate the Bully-Sexual Violence Pathway theory by examining homophobic name-calling perpetration as a moderator of bullying and sexual violence into high school. In addition, this study extends our understanding of the pathway by also examining homophobic name-calling as a mediator of the bully-sexual violence pathway.

Methods: Participants included 3,549 students from four Midwestern middle schools and six high schools. Surveys on bullying perpetration, homophobic name-calling perpetration and victimization, and sexual violence perpetration were administered across six time points from Spring 2008 to Spring 2013. The sample was 32.2% White, 46.2% African American, 5.4% Hispanic, and 10.2% other. The sample was 50.2% female. At baseline, students were in 5^th (30.5%), 6^th (37.2%), or 7^th (32.3%) grade. In wave six, participants had become freshmen, sophomores, or juniors in high school. To address our hypotheses (both replication and extension of the bully-sexual violence pathway), we ran a series of moderation and mediation models (using multi-group logistical regression and multi-mediator models).

Results: This study replicated and supported the applicability of the Bully-Sexual Violence Pathway theory into high school, and found that homophobic name-calling perpetration moderated bullying and sexual violence perpetration among boys only. Also, late middle school homophobic name-calling perpetration increased the odds of perpetrating sexual violence in high school among early middle school bullying perpetrators.

Conclusions: The results suggest that primary prevention efforts for sexual violence might be best if started in middle school and incorporated content related to reducing homophobic name-calling, as this study suggests homophobic name-calling may be the glue that connects bullying and sexual violence perpetration. Ongoing prevention programming throughout middle school and during the transition to high school seems to be critical to prevent sexual violence in high school.