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Citation |
Williams KR, Guerra NG. Soc. Probl. 2011; 58(1): 126-143. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2011, Society for the Study of Social Problems, Publisher Oxford University Press) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
Bullying is an important social problem that occurs within a bounded social setting. As such, it is best understood by analyzing the social dynamics that produce and sustain it. However, previous research has tended to view bullying as a manifestation of personal pathology or amorphous characteristics of contexts. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by applying the construct of collective efficacy to account for variations in the frequency of bullying perpetration within schools. Just as collective efficacy provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the dynamics of bullying in schools, these settings also provide an ideal social context for testing collective efficacy theory. The reason is that schools are clearly defined contexts with regular, ongoing social interactions among students, teachers, school staff, and administrators. In the present study, both lagged cross-sectional (LCS) models and fall-to-spring change (FSC) models were estimated to determine the empirical relations between student perceptions of collective efficacy and bullying perpetration, using data collected from 7,299 youth in fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades in 78 schools. Two key results were found: (1) perceptions of collective efficacy were negatively, significantly, and substantially associated with the frequency of bullying perpetration within schools over time, and (2) of the three components of collective efficacy (cohesion and trust, informal social control by adults, informal social control by peers) identified in a principal components factor analysis, cohesion and trust had the strongest estimated effects in all models estimated. Language: en |