Hate At School: Assessing The Role of Bias Motivation In Adolescent Peer Victimization
Open Access
- Author:
- Kurpiel, Allison
- Graduate Program:
- Criminology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 15, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Michelle Frisco, Program Head/Chair
Jennifer Frank, Outside Unit & Field Member
Pamela Wilcox, Major Field Member
David Ramey, Major Field Member
Jeremy Staff, Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- Bias
School Violence
Bullying
Victimization - Abstract:
- Prejudicial aggression contains a social significance that is unparalleled by non-prejudicial aggression. Accordingly, peer victimization motivated by bias against a target’s characteristics may be unique from nonbiased victimization in both etiology and impacts. As hate-motivated, intergroup conflict has given rise to some of history’s worst atrocities – such as genocide and lynching– it is important to intervene when the prejudice is still forming: during childhood and adolescence. Discriminatory victimization among youth can be better prevented if it is viewed as a distinct behavior with unique risk factors. However, scholarship has been slow to develop this area of research, and most existing studies on biased victimization among adolescents have not drawn from work on hate crime or general criminological theory. This dissertation highlights the ways in which biased victimization differs from nonbiased victimization, arguing that greater research and policy attention to prejudicial aggression is needed. To demonstrate the distinct harms stemming from bias, Study 1 analyzed two nationally representative datasets (i.e., The National Crime Victimization Survey’s School Crime Supplement and the Health Behavior among School-aged Children Survey) containing information about adolescent peer victimization at school and assessed the impacts of experiencing biased versus nonbiased (and no) victimization. In both datasets, students who experienced biased victimization at school experience worse outcomes than students who have not experienced biased victimization at school, even in analyses that employed a matching strategy to account for observed differences between students who experienced biased victimization and those who did not. Study 2 extended prior research by assessing the extent to which hate speech victimization co-occurs with nonbiased victimization at school. The goal of this analysis was to assess whether experiencing hate speech at school is typically an isolated experience or a component of a boarder pattern of poly-victimization. I also examined whether different types and combinations of victimization influenced odds of: 1) fear of victimization at school; and 2) avoiding places at school due to concern about victimization. Results indicated that hate speech is often experienced alongside bullying, and that impacts are greatest for poly-victimization regardless of whether hate speech is involved. Study 3 assessed the risk factors for biased victimization and biased perpetration relative to nonbiased victimization and perpetration. Broadly, my goal was to determine whether there are risk factors uniquely associated with biased victimization and biased perpetration, respectively, grounding my expectations in explanations of hate crime as well as general criminological theories. I also determined whether there was an overlap between victimization and perpetration of biased bullying, following prior research on the victim-offender overlap and victim-bullies. Findings indicated that there was a substantial overlap between biased victimization and biased perpetration, and that certain personal characteristics were uniquely associated with biased victimization (being female, under/overweight, not born in the U.S., family financial difficulties) and biased perpetration (being male, Black or Hispanic), mostly in accordance with hate crime theories. Although risky lifestyles were common among youth who had perpetrated biased bullying, these factors did not distinguish biased perpetrators from nonbiased perpetrators. Carrying a weapon stood out as the sole risky lifestyle variable associated with biased (vs nonbiased) bullying perpetration. On the whole, the analyses from these studies revealed that biased and nonbiased incidents cluster within students, that a non-trivial number of victims of biased bullying are also perpetrators of biased bullying, and that experiencing discrimination as a component of school bullying victimization is associated with increased risk of negative impacts for students. The findings are generally in line with existing explanations for biased aggression – such as thrill seeking and cultural explanations – though greater attention to the victim-perpetrator overlap, gender, and potential status goals of biased bullies is warranted. These results have important implications for advancing scholarly understanding of early manifestations of prejudicial attacks and spotlight one avenue by which educational institutions may serve to perpetuate and magnify existing social inequalities.