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Disproportionate Bullying Victimization and Perpetration by Disability Status, Race, and Gender: A National Analysis

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Abstract

Objectives

Bullying is a widespread problem in schools that has been linked to poor psychological, social, and academic outcomes for school-aged children. Individual risk factors such as disability status, race/ethnicity, and gender increase the likelihood of involvement in bullying behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore disproportionate bullying victimization and perpetration utilizing data from all US public schools as reported to the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Methods

We used data from over 90,000 US public schools. All schools reported bullying-related incidents by race, gender, and disability status. We calculated school-level risk ratios and estimated a series of robust variance estimation models to evaluate disproportionate bully-related discipline incidents.

Results

We found that students with disabilities, Black students, and Hispanic students were significantly more likely to be victims of bullying (e.g., students with disabilities were 32% more likely of being a victim of bullying than their peers without disabilities). Students with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, and male students were all also significantly more likely to be disciplined for bullying (e.g., students with disabilities were over 41% more at risk than their peers without disabilities).

Conclusions

The results reiterate that youth from traditionally marginalized backgrounds are at escalated risk for bullying involvement, and they are more likely to experience bullying and be disciplined as a function of their disability, race or ethnicity, or gender.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Special Education, School Psychology, & Early Childhood Studies, University of Florida, 2-170 Norman Hall, PO Box 117050, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Nicholas A. Gage

  2. Clemson University, 407 C Tillman Hall, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA

    Antonis Katsiyannis

  3. Department of Special Education, Graduate Studies - Special Education, Mizzou Ed Bully Prevention Lab, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Chad Rose

  4. School of Education, Southern Wesleyan University, Central, SC, USA

    Simone E. Adams

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  1. Nicholas A. Gage
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  2. Antonis Katsiyannis
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Contributions

NAG: designed and executed the study, conducted all data analyses, and wrote the methods, results, and limitations of the paper. AK: collaborated with the design and wrote half of the introduction and half of the discussion section of the study. CR: wrote half of the introduction and half of the discussion. SA: contributed to the introduction and discussion. All author approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Nicholas A. Gage.

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Gage, N.A., Katsiyannis, A., Rose, C. et al. Disproportionate Bullying Victimization and Perpetration by Disability Status, Race, and Gender: A National Analysis. Adv Neurodev Disord 5, 256–268 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41252-021-00200-2

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