school victimization among adolescents. an analysis from ...lisis/david/12articulo3.pdf · a strong...

Psychosocial InterventionVol. 20, No. 2, 2011 - pp. 149-160

Copyright 2011 by the Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de MadridISSN: 1132-0559 - http://dx.doi.org/10.5093/in2011v20n2a3

School Victimization Among Adolescents. An Analysis from anEcological Perspective*

Victimización Escolar en Adolescentes. Un Análisis desde laPerspectiva Ecológica

Belén Martínez Ferrer1, David Moreno Ruiz1, Luis V. Amador1, and Jim Orford21 Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla. Spain

2 University of Birmingham, UK

Abstract. The present study has two objectives. The first is to analyze the relationships between commu-nity (integration in the community), family (perception of family climate), school (perception of school cli-mate) and individual (social reputation and satisfaction with life) and school victimization among adoles-cents, from an ecological perspective. Secondly, this study aims to examine the differences in these rela-tionships between boys and girls. The sample is composed of 1795 adolescents of both sexes (52% boysand 48% girls) whose ages range from 11 to 18 years old (M = 14.2, SD = 1.68) and who are all from theSpanish Autonomous Community of Andalucia. A model of structural equations was calculated using theEQS program. The results indicated that school climate and satisfaction with life are positively associatedwith victimization. In addition, community integration and family climate are related to victimizationthrough life satisfaction. The multigroup analysis by sex indicated that the relationship between school cli-mate and social reputation, as well as between implication in the community and social reputation wereonly statistically significant in the case of boys. Finally, the results obtained and their potential implica-tions are discussed from an ecological point of view.Keywords: community integration, family climate, ideal non-conforming social reputation, satisfactionwith life, school climate, victimization.

Resumen. El presente estudio tiene dos objetivos. El primer objetivo es analizar las relaciones entre losámbitos comunitario (integración en la comunidad), familiar (percepción del clima familiar), escolar (per-cepción del clima escolar) e individual (reputación social y satisfacción con la vida) y la victimizaciónescolar en adolescentes, desde una perspectiva ecológica. En segundo lugar, examinar las diferencias entrechicos y chicas en estas relaciones. La muestra está compuesta por 1795 adolescentes de ambos sexos(52% chicos y 48% chicas) con edades comprendidas entre los 11 y 18 años (M = 14.2, DT = 1.68) proce-dentes de la Comunidad Autónoma de Andalucía. Se calculó un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales con elprograma EQS. Los resultados indicaron que el clima escolar y la satisfacción con la vida se asocian demanera positiva con la victimización. Además, la integración comunitaria y el clima familiar se relacionancon la victimización a través de la satisfacción con la vida. El análisis multigrupo en función del sexo indi-có que la relación entre el clima escolar y la reputación social, así como entre implicación comunitaria yreputación social resultó significativa únicamente para los chicos. Finalmente, se discuten los resultadosobtenidos y sus posibles implicaciones desde un enfoque ecológico.Palabras clave: clima escolar, clima familiar, integración comunitaria, reputación social ideal no confor-mista, satisfacción con la vida, victimización.

Being victim of school violence is defined as suffer-ing physical, verbal, and psychological violence, per-petrated by school peers, particularly in places with lit-tle adult supervision (Graham, 2006; Hawker andBoulton, 2000). From a psychosocial perspective, thedefinition of violence and victimization at school alsotakes into account the interaction between perpetratorand victim (Olweus, 1993) and the impact of this inter-

action style on the psychosocial adjustment of aggres-sor and victim (Guterman, Hahn, and Cameron, 2002).

One of the theoretical frameworks of research andintervention in school violence is the ecological model(Espelage and Swearer, 2004, 2010). According to thisapproach, violent behavior is the result of the interac-tion between individual characteristics and the psy-chosocial development contexts of aggressors and vic-tims (Barboza et al., 2009; Benbenishty and Astor,2005; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Swearer, Espelage,Vaillancourt, and Hymel, 2010). The study of violenceand victimization from an ecological perspectivetherefore places special emphasis on the connection

Correspondence: Belén Martínez Ferrer. Universidad Pablo deOlavide de Sevilla. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Ed. 11, Ctra. deUtrera, Km. 1- 41013 Sevilla. E-mail: [email protected]

* Versión en castellano disponible en [Spanish version available at]:www.psychosocial-intervention.org

between individual characteristics and the family,school and community domains (Barboza et al., 2009;Bronfenbrenner and Morris 1998; Limber, 2006).

It has been found that the family, school and com-munity domains are related with school violence(Martínez, Murgui, Musitu, and Monreal, 2008;Overstreet and Mazza 2003). However, studies ofschool victimization from an ecological perspectiveare scant (Swearer et al., 2010). As a result, the gener-al aim of this study is to analyze school victimizationin adolescents using an ecological approach, that is,examining the connections between the individual,family, school, and community subsystems.

The community context

Numerous authors maintain that community inte-gration, defined as involvement, participation andsense of support in the community, is positively relat-ed with psychosocial adjustment and well-being(Albanesi, Cicognani, and Zani, 2006; Cicognani et al.,2008; Copello, Orford, Hodgson, Tober, and Barret,2004; Parry, Laburn-Peart, Orford, and Dalton, 2004;Vieno, Nation, Perkins, and Santinello, 2007). Withinthe community, social relationships and friendships arecreated and maintained which make up the individualssocial capital, along with resources and opportunitieswhich are transferable to other contexts (Cotterell,1996; Gracia, Herrero, and Musitu, 2002; Herrero andGracia, 2004; Kosterman, Mason, Haggerty, Hawkins,Spoth, and Redmond, 2011). So, a community-individ-ual interaction exists than reinforces the personal senseof failure or success (Parry et al., 2004).

Adolescents, through social relationships with theirpeers and with significant adults in the community,have the chance to learn and internalize social norms,expectations and the roles which society demands ofthem (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls, 1997).Previous studies have also pointed out that the cohe-sion and interaction between young people and signif-icant adults who reinforce prosocial behavior caninhibit violent behaviour (Resnick, 2004; Stoddard,Henly, Sieving, and Bolland, 2011). In the case of vic-timization, community integration would seem toencourage social adjustment, life satisfaction and self-esteem, and, in this way, reduce the possibility of beingvictimized (Jiménez, Musitu, Ramos, and Murgui,2009; Martínez, Amador, Moreno, and Musitu, 2011).

The school context

‘School climate’ refers to the subjective perceptionsabout the school and classroom characteristics, as wellas the student-teacher relationships and relationshipsbetween classmates, all of which is related with schoolintegration and a sense of belonging in this particular

setting (Cook, Murphy, and Hunt, 2000; Cunningham,2002; Yoneyama and Rigby, 2006).

Victims of violence inform of a negative perceptionof school climate and feel less connected with school,an institution which they perceive as insecure becauseit does not punish aggressors (Goldstein, Young, andBoyd, 2008; Natving, Albrektsen, and Qvarnstrom,2001; O’Brennan, Bradshaw, and Sawyer, 2009;Yoneyama and Rigby, 2006). On the other hand, a pos-itive valuation of school climate seems to attenuate thepotential impact of risk factors such as a lack ofparental involvement or associating with deviant peers,and thus reduces the probability of becoming implicat-ed in violence, either as victim or perpetrator (Swearer,et al., 2010). In addition, adolescents who value theschool climate positively are found to be more closelyattached to the school and teachers, and, as a conse-quence, show a positive attitude towards authority andgreater disposition to respect the norms of collectiveand community life (Catalano, Hagerty, Oesterle,Fleming, and Hawkins, 2004; Gottfredson, Gottfred-son, Payne, and Gottfredson, 2005). In this way, anatmosphere is created in which victims of violence canreport their situation and overcome it (Guerra,Williams, and Sadek, 2011).

The family context

Recent studies underline the link between percep-tion of the family climate and involvement in violentacts, be it as the victim or the perpetrator (seeMatjasko, Needham, Grunden, and Feldman, 2010). Afamily climate which encourages cohesion, support,confidence and intimacy between members of the fam-ily and which allows open and empathetic family com-munication dynamics, encourages the psychosocialadjustment of adolescents (Lila and Buelga, 2003;Musitu and García, 2004). Family climate, in addition,influences the configuration of attitudes in adolescentswith regard to norms, social behavior and to perceptionof school climate, thus relating it with involvement inthe community and school violence (Moreno, Estévez,Murgui, and Musitu, 2009). Adolescents who perceivea positive family climate are also more sensitive to theexpectations and desires of their parents, boosting theindirect social control of the family over transgressionof norms, and, consequently, over the involvement ofthe children in violent or criminal activity (Pettit,Bates, and Dodge, 1997).

The perception of a negative family climate, however,where there are communication problems, frequentconflicts and low levels of involvement, constitutes animportant risk in terms of school victimization(Jiménez et al., 2009; Lucia and Breslau, 2006). A lackof confidence and close relationships, both associatedwith family climate, seem to isolate adolescents fromthe positive influences of the family and promote situ-

150 SCHOOL VICTIMIZATION, AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH



ations of vulnerability to violence, such as associationswith negative influences or solitude (Matjasko et al.,2010).

The individual context

A negative perception of school climate seems to berelated with the search for a social identity and reputa-tion in the reference group, probably with the objectiveof feeling integrated and supported (Moreno et al.,2009). Recent studies have linked school violence withthe construction of a social identity founded on accept-ance of the trangressive group and which bases statusand social recognition on confrontation with a systembelieved to be unjust and on the expression of violentbehavior, even if this causes them to be rejected by therest of their classmates (Carroll, Green, Houghton, andWood, 2003; Jones, Haslam, York, and Ryan, 2008). Ittherefore seems that school violence can be an effec-tive way of achieving social acceptance and achievinga strong position in the group (Guerra et al., 2011).

As a consequence, the development of a non-con-forming social reputation can offer the adolescent, par-ticularly if they have been victimized at school, thesocial recognition they desire from their peers (Morenoet al., 2009). In this way, the adolescent may avoid thedanger of becoming a victim, or even escape victim-ization that has already begun, even if in dong so it isnecessary to become, on occasions, the aggressor. Asecond question related to school victimization in ado-lescents is satisfaction with life, in that victims feelless satisfied in comparison with their peers who havenot suffered victimization (Prinstein, Boergers, and

Vernberg, 2001; Rodríguez, 2004). Life satisfaction isclosely related with perception of the family, schooland community domains.

Objectives

The empirical evidence currently available suggeststhat integration in the community, school and familyclimate and individual variables, such as social reputa-tion and life satisfaction, are related with involvementin violent behavior at school, be it as victim or aggres-sor. However, few investigations have analyzed froman ecological perspective the connections between thecommunity, school, family and individual domainswhen looking at the problem of school victimization inadolescents. For this reason, the first objective of thepresent study is to analyze the relationships betweenthe community (integration in the community), school(school climate), family (family climate) and individ-ual (social reputation and life satisfaction) contexts inthe study of victimization among adolescents. A sec-ond objective of this investigation is to explore thepotential differences between boys and girls withregard to these interrelationships, given that recentstudies suggest that the influence of these settings(family, school, and community) on adolescents psy-chosocial adjustment and well-being of adolescentsvaries between boys and girls (Bearman, Wheldall, andKemp, 2006; Estévez, Murgui, Musitu, and Moreno,2008a; Hilt and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2009; Povedano,Hendry, Ramos, and Varela, 2011).

In Figure 1, the theoretical model on which thehypotheses of this investigation are based is set out.



BELÉN MARTÍNEZ, DAVID MORENO, LUIS V. AMADOR, AND JIM ORFORD 151

Figure 1. Theoretical Model

These hypotheses are: (1) school and family climateare directly and inversely related with school violence,while integration in the community does not have adirect relationship with victimization; (2) social repu-tation and life satisfaction have a negative relationshipwith school victimization; (3) integration in the com-munity, school climate and family climate have anindirect relationship with victimization, through indi-vidual variables such as social reputation and life sat-isfaction; and (4) boys and girls differ with regard tothese relationships (integration in the community andvictimization through school and family climate, socialreputation and life satisfaction).

Method

Sample

1795 Spanish youngsters of both sexes (52% maleand 48% female) participated in the study. They wereaged between 11 and 18 years old (M = 13.2, SD =1.68), and came from 9 different Spanish educationalcenters (state and private schools receiving publicfunds) in the Autonomous Community of Andalucia, inboth rural and urban settings. At the time of the inves-tigation, these adolescents were either studying com-pulsory secondary education (1st year to 4th year), orpost-compulsory secondary education (1st and 2nd

years). The sample is representative of the educationalcommunity in Andalucia, with a population universe of501899 students at both levels. A sample error of ±2.3% was deemed acceptable, with a confidence levelof 95% and a population variance of .50. The size ofthe sample required was 1718 students. A stratifiedsampling design by conglomerates was carried out(Santos, Muñoz, Juez, and Cortiñas, 2003), with thesampling units being the educational centers (state andstate-funded, in rural and urban settings in Andalucía).For this, the list of all high schools in Andalucia wasused. The strata were established according to yeargroup (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year of compulsory second-ary education and 1st and 2nd year of post-compulsorysecondary education).

Procedure

Firstly, a letter was sent out to the educational cen-ters explaining the research project. Later, telephonecontact was made with school management and anappointment was made in which the project wasexplained in detail, and consent papers were submittedfor distribution to students and parents, along with aletter explaining the research. When permission hadbeen obtained, an information seminar was arrangedwith the teaching staff of each center, in which theobjectives and range of the study were explained.

The application of the instruments was carried outby a trained group of expert researchers. The batterywas given to the adolescents in their normal class-rooms during regular class hours and the teacher-tutorwas always present. The order of instruments wascounterbalanced between different classes and schools.This phase of the research began in January 209 andended in March 2009. The adolescents were informedat all times that their participation in the investigationwas voluntary and anonymous. Finally, the teacher-tutors also completed a scale with information abouteach of the members of their class. This study fulfilledthe ethical values required of all research carried outwith human beings, and respected the fundamentalprincipals of the Helsinki Declaration, its updates andits current requirements (informed consent and right toinformation, protection of personal data and guaran-tees of confidentiality, non-discrimination, free partic-ipation and the right to leave the study at any stage).

Instruments

Integration in the Community. Perceived Communi-ty Support Questionnaire (PCSQ, Gracia, Herrero, andMusitu, 2002). Two subscales were selected for thisstudy, making up the first factor, factor integration inthe community. These were: int in the community(understood as the sense of belonging to and identify-ing with the community. For example, “I feel happy inmy neighborhood”) and community participation(extent to which the adolescent is involved in socialactivities in the community. For example, “I collabo-rate (alone, with my family, with friends etc.) in asso-ciations or activities with are organized in my neigh-borhood”. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for thesedimensions is .73 and .67 respectively. In previousresearch, it has been observed that the PCSQ evaluatesadequately the community experience in adults andadolescents (Herrero and Gracia, 2004, 2007).

Family Climate. Family Environment Scale (FES,Moos, Moos, and Trickett, 1984; Spanish adaptationby Fernández-Ballesteros and Sierra, 1989). TheInterpersonal Relationships subscale, made up of 30binary items (true or false) was used to measure threedimensions: (1) cohesion (degree of commitment andfamily support perceived by the children, for example“In my family, we really help and support each other”).(2) expressiveness (degree to which emotions areexpressed within the family, for example, “In my fam-ily we talk about our personal problems”). (3) conflict(amount of openly expressed anger and conflictbetween family members, for example, “In my familywe often criticize each other”). Cronbach’s alpha forthese dimensions is .76, .52 and .58, respectively.

School Climate. Classroom Environment Scale(CES, Moos et al., 1984; Spanish adaptation by Fern-ández-Ballesteros and Sierra, 1989). The Interpersonal




Relationships subscale was used, made up of 30 itemswhich inform about relationships between students andbetween students and teachers, the degree to whichstudents feel they are integrated in the class, support-ing and helping each other, and helped by the teacher.This subscale is made up of three dimensions:Involvement (for example, “The students pay attentionto what the teacher says”), Teacher Support (for exam-ple, “The teacher shows interest in the students”) andFriendship (for example, “Many people becomefriends in this class”). The reliability of the subscales,according to Cronbach’s alpha is .63, .63 and .68,respectively.

Non-conforming ideal social reputation. Social Re-putation Scale (Carroll, Houghton, Hattie, and Durkin;1999; bi-directional English-Spanish translation). TheNon-conforming Ideal Social Reputation subscale wasselected, which has a four-point scale of alternativeanswers, from 1 –never– to 4 –always– (for example,“I would like others to think that I am tough”).Cronbach’s alpha for this dimension was .78.

Satisfaction with Life. Satisfaction with Life Scale(Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin; 1985; Spanishadaptation by Atienza, Pons, Balaguer, and García-Merita, 2000). This scale offers a general index of satis-faction with life, understood as a general, subjectiveconstruct of well-being. This instrument is made up of 5items with a scale of answers from 1-strongly disagree-to 4 –strongly agree (for example, “Most aspects of mylife are as I would like them to be”). The internal consis-tency as measured by Cronbach’s alpha was .74.

Victimization. Peer Victimization Scale (Mynard andJoseph, 2000). The instrument is composed of 20 itemswhich describe situations of direct and indirect peervictimization (10 items correspond to direct victimiza-tion and 10 to indirect), with a Likert-type scale ofanswers arranged along four points (1 = never, 4 =many times). In a previous study (Cava, Musitu, andMurgui, 2007) a factor analysis with Oblimin rotationindicated a three-factor structure, explaining 62% ofvariance: Physical Victimization (for example, “I’vebeen hit by a classmate who really wanted to hurt me”);Verbal Victimization (for example, “I’ve been insultedby a classmate”) and Relationship Victimization (forexample, “I’ve had rumors started about me and beencriticized by a classmate behind my back”). This factorstructure was replicated in the current sample througha confirmatory factor analysis using the programAMOS (version 6.0, Arbuckle, 2005) with good fit(GFI = .93, RMSEA = .062). Cronbach’s alpha for thesample was .87, .67 and .89, respectively.

Results

Structural equation modeling was carried out usingthe EQS 6.0 software program (Bentler, 1995; Bentlerand Wu, 2002), in order to analyze the influence on

victimization of the community, school, family andindividual factors (social reputation and satisfactionwith life). Previously, Pearson correlations were calcu-lated between all variables studied and analyses ofvariance by gender were carried out (MANOVA).These data are shown in Table 1, along with the aver-ages and standard deviations by gender. The resultsshow significant correlations, in the direction predict-ed, so all variables were included in the structuralequation modeling calculations.

With regard to the analyses of variance, boysobtained higher scores than girls: involvement in theclassroom (classroom climate), participation (involve-ment in the community), ideal non-conforming socialreputation, verbally manifested victimization, relation-ship victimization (school victimization). Girls showedhigher scores in expressiveness (family climate), whencompared with boys.

Following the previous analysis, structural equationmodeling was carried out, using all variables, with theprogram EQS 6.0 (Bentler, 1995). The latent variablesincluded in the model were as follows: Involvement inthe Community (indicators: integration in the commu-nity and participation in the community); FamilyClimate (indicators: cohesion, expressiveness and con-flict); School Climate (indicators: involvement, helpfrom teacher and friendships); Satisfaction with Life(consisting of one single indicator), Non-ConformingReputation (Ideal) (consisting of one single indicator)and Victimization (indicators: physical verbal and rela-tionship victimization).

In Table 2, we present the latent variables includedin the model, their respective indicators, the standarderrors and the probability attached to each indicator inthe corresponding latent variable. Given that the lifesatisfaction and non-conforming idea reputation fac-tors are constructed from one single indicator, theygive a factor weighting of 1 and error of 0.

The normalized Mardia coefficient indicates that themodel does not follow the normal distribution(Normalized Mardia Coefficient = 31.05), and for thisreason robust estimators were used. The calculatedmodel shows a good fit to the data: CFI = .97, IFI =.97, NNFI = .95 and RMSEA = .042 (90% confidenceinterval: .036 - .048). For the CFI, IFI and NNFI index-es, values above .95 were considered acceptable, andfor the RMSEA values below .05 (Batista andCoenders, 2000). This model explains 11% of the vari-ance for school victimization. Figure 2 shows a graph-ic representation of the final structural model, includ-ing the standardized coefficients and the probabilitiesassociated with them.

A significant correlation was found between percep-tions of school and family climate (r = .50, p < .001).The total effects (the sum of the direct and indirecteffects) on victimization of the variables of the modelare as follows: involvement in the community (β =-.16, p < .01), family climate (β = -.10, p < .01) and







Tabl

e1.

Pear

son

Cor

rela

tions

betw

een

the

varia

bles

obse

rved

inth

em

odel

,Mea

nan

dVa

rianc

eA

naly

sis.

12

34

56

78

910

1112

13

Inte

grat

ion

/Inv

olve

men

tin

the

Com

mun

ity1

Inte

grat

ion

/Par

ticip

atio

nin

the

Com

mun

ity.3

14(*

*)1

.378

(**)

1

Scho

olCl

imat

e/In

volv

emen

t.0

57.0

381

.172

(**)

.163

(**)

1

Scho

olCl

imat

e/Fr

iend

ship

s.1

15(*

*).0

12.4

01(*

*)1

.216

(**)

.078

(*)

.419

(**)

1

Scho

olCl

imat

e/Te

ache

rSup

port

.105

(**)

.084

(*)

.349

(**)

.333

(**)

1.0

75(*

).1

67(*

*).3

35(*

*).3

11(*

*)1

Scho

olCl

imat

eCo

hesio

n.2

28(*

*).1

17(*

*).0

96(*

*).2

99(*

*).2

12(*

*)1

173(

**)

.134

(**)

.064

.297

(**)

.227

(**)

1

Fam

ilyCl

imat

e/Ex

pres

siven

ess

.131

(**)

.039

.067

(*)

.160

(**)

.131

(**)

.417

(**)

1.11

2(**

).1

42(*

*).0

64.2

27(*

*).1

47(*

*).5

12(*

*)1

Fam

ilyCl

imat

e/La

ckof

Conf

lict

.189

(**)

.087

(**)

.077

(*)

.209

(**)

.161

(**)

.522

(**)

.127

(**)

1.0

89(*

).0

81(*

*).0

40.2

02(*

*).1

58(*

*)-.5

09(*

*).1

31(*

*)1

Idea

Soci

alRe

puta

tion

-.174

(**)

-.078

(*)

-.132

(**)

-.109

(**)

-.161

(**)

-.182

(**)

0.00

7-.1

60(*

*)1

.034

-.065

.012

0.03

2-.0

16-.0

91(*

*)-0

.046

-.138

(**)

1

Satis

fact

ion

with

Life

.224

(**)

.137

(**)

.178

(**)

.209

(**)

.209

(**)

.268

(**)

.215

(**)

.206

(**)

-.148

(**)

1.2

87(*

*).1

72(*

*).2

11(*

*).2

51(*

*).1

97(*

*).3

66(*

*).2

05(*

*).2

82(*

*)-.0

90(*

*)1

Verb

ally

Man

ifeste

dVi

ctim

izat

ion

-.183

(**)

.054

-.099

(**)

-.199

(**)

-.036

-.167

(**)

-.075

(*)

-.183

(**)

.069

(*)

-.208

(**)

1-.1

00(*

*)0.

033

-.097

(**)

-.181

(**)

-0.0

51-.1

67(*

*)-.1

26(*

*)-.1

55(*

*).0

00-.2

86(*

*)1

Phys

ical

lyM

anife

sted

Vict

imiz

atio

n-.1

55(*

*).0

77(*

)-.0

55-.1

72(*

*)-.0

62-.2

15(*

*)-.0

63-.2

20(*

*).0

85(*

)-.2

08(*

*).6

88(*

*)1

-0.0

58.0

95(*

*)-.0

94(*

*)-.1

49(*

*)0.

010

-.124

(**)

-.108

(**)

-.081

(*)

.000

-.221

(**)

.662

(**)

1

Rela

tions

hip

Viol

ence

-.199

(**)

-.064

0.06

2-.1

83(*

*)-.0

28-.1

79(*

*)-.0

60-.2

01(*

*).0

66-.2

50(*

*).8

18(*

*).6

57(*

*)1

-.100

(**)

.015

-.128

(**)

-.171

(**)

-0.0

14-.1

54(*

*)-.0

96(*

*)-.1

19(*

*)-0

.018

-.300

(**)

.836

(**)

.640

(**)

1

Mea

nfo

rboy

s15

.60

14.4

714

.03

16.2

715

.21

15.7

013

.99

11.8

410

.19

14.8

711

.76

5.84

17.0

0M

ean

forg

irls

15.7

414

.03

13.7

916

.21

15.2

415

.72

14.2

311

.91

9.35

14.7

611

.32

5.10

16.9

5F(

1,17

15)

.85

n.s.

5.27

*5.

20*

.39

n.s.

.06

n.s.

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6.90

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123.

782.

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172.

752.

381.

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963.

803.

134.

292.

206.

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evia

tion

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irls

3.21

4.12

2.21

2.30

2.80

2.50

1.97

2.06

3.01

3.26

4.54

31.

746.

77

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<.0

5;**

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***

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The

coef

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inita

lics.

school climate (β = -.16, p < .001). Furthermore, thedirect effects observed show that the perception ofschool climate and satisfaction with life are negativelyrelated with victimization (β = -.12, p < .01 y ‚ = -.20,p < .001, respectively). In addition, involvement in thecommunity is positively associated with family cli-mate (β = .28, p < .001), school climate (β = .27, p <.001) and satisfaction with life (β = .24, p < .001) andnegatively associated with ideal reputation (β = -.08, p< .05). Family climate is negatively related with idealreputation (β = -.12, p < .001) and positively with lifesatisfaction (β = -.18, p < .001). Finally, school climateis positively associated with life satisfaction (β = .21,p < .001).

The final analyses were carried out in order toexplore whether the relationships observed in themodel vary depending on gender, and a multigroupanalysis was therefore carried out. The restricted andnon-restricted multigroup analysis models were shownto be statistically different for boys and for girls (∆χ2(15, N = 1657) = 46.84, p .05).




Table 2. Estimations for parameters, standard error and associated pro-bability

Variables Factor loading

Integration in the Community

Involvement 1a

Participation .80***(.10)

Family Climate

Cohesion 1a

Expressiveness .38***(.02)

Lack of conflict 0.54***(.03)

School Climate

Involvement 1a

Teacher help .94***(.08)

Friendships .97***(.07)

Satisfaction with Life 1a

Non-conforming reputation (ideal) 1a

Victimization

Verbal Victimization 1a

Physical Victimization .35***(.02)

Robust statistics. Standard Error in brackets.a Set at 1.00 for the estimation*** p < .001 (two-tailed)

Figure 2. Final Structural Model including relationship coefficients and statistical significance

Broken lines represent non-significant relationships.*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

Discussion

In this study, we carried out an analysis of the rela-tionships between three significant contexts in adoles-cents’ lives (community –integration in the communi-ty–, school –school climate– and family –family cli-mate–) and individual variables (satisfaction with lifeand non-conforming ideal social reputation) andschool victimization, guided by the principles of theecological perspective.

With regard to the first of our hypotheses, this pre-dicted that school and family climate would be direct-ly related with each other, and negatively related withschool victimization, results show that, in, fact, onlyschool climate has a direct negative relationship withvictimization. Family climate, on the other hand, andintegration in the community are not significantlyrelated with victimization. This means that the firsthypothesis is confirmed only partially. It is surprisingthat family climate, a context supposedly closelylinked with the development and adjustment of chil-dren, is not directly related with victimization, a rela-tionship which had been shown by numerous studies(Lila and Buelga, 2003; Lucia and Breslau, 2006;Matjasko et al., 2010; Moreno et al., 2009a; Povedanoet al., 2011). We believe that this result may be due tothe method of measuring victimization, since when amore detailed analysis of results was done, it as seenthat this global measure makes no distinction betweenreactive, and sometimes provocative, victimization,and submissive, non-reactive victimization (aggres-sive victims and pure victims). The small number ofprevious investigations that have looked into thesedivisions have shown that these two categories aredifferent from one another, in that aggressive victimshave a similar profile to aggressors, while the same isnot true of pure victims, who usually report more pos-itive family climates than aggressive victims andaggressors (Cava, Murgui, and Musitu, 2007;Estévez, Murgui, and Musitu, 2008b; Povedano et al.,2011; Schwartz, 2000). We therefore consider thatfuture research should take into account these distinc-tions.

With regard to integration in the community andschool climate, the results confirm our hypothesis.They show that integration in the community is relatedwith victimization through paths, which will bedescribed below in more detail, such as social reputa-tion and satisfaction with life, which are both no con-sidered to be of great importance in adolescents’ qual-ity of life (Cotterell, 1996; Gracia et al., 2002; Jiménezet al., 2009; Parry at al., 2004). It has also been con-firmed in many studies that school climate has a directinfluence on victimization, in that victims have a verynegative perception of the school and classroom envi-ronment (Goldstein et al., 2008; Natving et al., 2001;O’Brennan et al., 2009; Yoneyama and Rigby, 2006).Adolescents spend a great deal of their time at school

and in interactions with peers, with whom they createand maintain relationships of differing proximity.When the climate is negative, it would seem that thevulnerability increases of those students who are leastintegrated of being subjected to behavior which breaksthe normal rules of coexistence (Catalano et al., 2004;Goldstein et al., 2008; Gottfredson et al., 2005;O’Brennan et al., 2009; Yoneyama and Rigby, 2006)

In the second hypothesis, we predicted that reputa-tion and satisfaction with life would be negativelyassociated with victimization. The data only permit usto confirm this hypothesis for satisfaction with life.The absence of the relation with social reputation canbe explained if we take into account that the reputationassessed in this study was an ideal of non-conformingreputation, which refers to the desire to achieve asocial image based on transgression of norms, thusavoiding mistreatment situations. Obviously, this sen-sation is not the same as that of the aggressors, whosenon-conforming social reputation is greater than that ofthe non-violent adolescents in the class, and who, inaddition, need the victims in order to maintain theirown reputation (Carroll et al., 2003; Jones et al., 2008;Moreno et al., 2009).

This question is extremely important and meritsdeeper analysis, since in this study we did not distin-guish between aggressive victims and non-aggressors,as mentioned above. If we could distinguish these twocategories within the group of victims, it would helpsituate those with these motivations with greater rigorwith regards to the question of reputation. It wouldalso allow us to distinguish, using the same dimen-sions, and in the same way, pure aggressors andaggressive victims, given that what distinguishes thesegroups is that the power imbalance is reduced throughaggressive reactions. Recent research has shown thataggressive victims score lower on satisfaction with lifeand involvement in the community, while achievinghigher scores, similar to aggressors, in non-conform-ing ideal reputation (Estévez et al., 2008b). Violentbehavior in aggressive victims seems to respond to thedesire to be a part of a group of friends, to be popularor appreciated, and, in this way, achieve social reputa-tion, recognition, fame and status, and satisfy certainneeds for social approval (Emler, 1990; Moreno et al.,2009; Rodríguez, 2004).

In the third of our hypotheses, we suggested thatintegration in the community and school and familyclimate would be indirectly related with victimizationthrough individual variables such as social reputation,and satisfaction with life. In this study, we found thatcommunity integration has a direct relationship withfamily climate. The association between implication inthe community and school climate was also demon-strated. The following paths referred to in our hypoth-esis, relating to the relationships between the family,school and community domains with victimizationthrough social reputation and satisfaction with life,




were partially confirmed, in that school climate wasassociated with satisfaction with life but not with non-conforming ideal social reputation.

These results demonstrate the great relevance ofpeer relationships and school as significant contexts inadolescence. We can say that part of the life satisfac-tion of students comes from their experience of theclassroom and school atmospheres. However, schoolclimate was not found to be related with non-conform-ing ideal social reputation, as the negative relationshipwas not found to be significant. We believe that thisresult reflects the contrast between school climate(assessed as acceptance, involvement, commitment,respect and help) and non-conforming ideal social rep-utation which relates to transgression of norms. This isa question which should continue to be explored, giventhat non-conforming social reputation seems to comemainly from the family environment rather thanschool.

With regard to the second of the contexts, that offamily, we observed a close negative relationshipbetween family climate and non-conforming idealsocial reputation. This point has already been men-tioned above, but it is worth underlining that “dream-ing of a non-conforming social reputation”, that is, ide-alizing trangression of norms, has a clear origin in thefamily context. In addition, it has found that the fami-ly plays an important role in satisfaction with life foradolescents, to which we could also add implication inthe community.

This means that, while earlier we explained thatschool climate makes a significant contribution to sat-isfaction with life for adolescents, we now have toadd family and community climate to this, giving usthe three contexts which we have already noted asbeing closely related to each other and which have aclear and precise role in adolescents’ satisfaction withlife. Possibly the most interesting result thrown up bythis study is the fact that satisfaction with life has anegative relationship with victimization, demonstrat-ing that all the force held by the three contexts (fami-ly, school, community) is absorbed in a dimensionwhich is more and more important in adolescents’adjustment and which has to do with life satisfaction.This result demonstrates that the community, familyand school contexts are closely interconnected, andrelate to victimization through the effect they have onmore individual questions, such as satisfaction withlife and reputation. This vindicates the validity ofusing an ecological approach to analyze these types ofbehavior.

With regard to the fourth, and last, hypothesis, inwhich we anticipated that we would find differencesbetween boys and girls in the three contexts (family,school and community) and victimization throughsocial reputation and satisfaction with life, it wasfound that boys and girls differ in two paths. Firstly, asignificant negative associate was observed between

integration in the community and social reputation inboys, while for the girls this relationship was not sig-nificant. This result confirms that a community con-text of commitment, of participation in networks andin solving the community’s problems pushes boysaway from attraction to transgressive behavior, possi-ble because their social world is based on relationswith prosocial peers and significant adults (Resnick etal., 2004; Stoddard and Bolland, 2001). It should alsobe noted that non-conforming ideal social reputa-tion is greater in boys than in girls (Estévez et al.,2008b).

Secondly, the relationship between school climateand non-conforming ideal social reputation variesbetween boys and girls in the sense that, once again, inboys this relationship is negative, and significant,while in girls this association is not significant. Thisresult is also very interesting and important, given thatclass atmosphere, when perceived positively –studentsfeel integrated and participate in decision-making, feelvalued by the teacher, etc.– promotes or encouragesboys (but not girls) to express themselves according tothe rules, while a negative perception of, or feelingstoward, time spent in the classroom seems to implybehaviors based on the transgression of the rules.These results would seem to suggest that when schoolclimate is negative, boys attempt to find an alternativemeans of achieving acceptance, outside of the schoolrules and more to do with power relationships in thepeer group, while girls do not need to create a reputa-tion on these terms, perhaps finding themselves betteradjusted at school.

The present study also has some limitations thatmean we must be cautious when interpreting theresults, and continue research in this area. Firstly, thetransversal nature of the study does not allow us toestablish causal relationships. In addition, in this studywe used a global measure of victimization which doesnot take account of the heterogeneity present in adoles-cents. However, we believe that the results do show theusefulness of an ecological approach in the analysis ofproblems related to the behavior of adolescents.School victimization must be considered as a complexsocial process which involves development context ofadolescents. The individualization of violence and vic-timization may impeded the recognition and disclosureby targets who blamed themselves for the difficultiesthey experienced (Lewis and Orford, 2005).

This study, moreover, is an invitation to profession-als working in social action in education who are con-cerned for the adjustment of adolescents to refocustheir programs and social and educational policy.These should target not only the school, but also thefamily, neighborhoods and communities, which, afterall, are spaces constructed by many families sharingvalues and beliefs, and where school collaborates, andcan act as a catalyst for, indeed, as an amplifier of,those family ideals and worries.




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Author’s NoteThis investigation was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science

and Innovation Grant PSI2008-01535/PSIC: “School Violence,Victimization, and Social Reputation in Adolescence”, and cofinancedby the FEDER European fund.




Manuscript received: 10/08/2010Review received: 17/11/2010

Accepted: 20/02/2011

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