Community Violence Exposure and Bullying: The Moderating Role of School and Neighborhood Factors

Background and Purpose: A strong evidence base indicates that exposure to community violence (ECV) increases the risk for aggression. However, relatively few studies have investigated how the ECV is correlated with peer victimization (e.g., bullying, being bullied). This represents a significant gap in the fields of violence prevention and victimization.  Additionally, identifying malleable factors in the school and neighborhood environments is an important step to reducing the likelihood of engagement in peer victimization.  This study seeks to assess the relationship between three dimensions of ECV (witnessing, victimization, and hearing about incidents of violence) and the likelihood of peer victimization (both being bullied and bullying).  Additionally, this study examines whether school engagement, school climate, and neighborhood social cohesion might moderate the relationship between ECV and peer victimization. 

Methods: Between 2014 – 2015, a convenience sample of 552 African American adolescents were recruited from several neighborhoods in Chicago.  Confirmatory factory analysis identified three dimensions of exposure to community violence (witnessing, victimization, and hearing about incidents of violence) and peer victimization (being bullied and bullying). Two separate structural equation models in MPLUS 7.0 assessed the relationship between the three dimensions of ECV and the two forms of peer victimization (being bullied and bullying), after controlling for income, sex, age, and sexual orientation.  Once final structural models were identified, the extent to which these relationships were moderated by school engagement, school climate, and neighborhood social cohesion were assessed through group based modeling.  

Results: Major findings indicated that various dimensions of ECV were related differentially to either bullying or being bullied.  For being bullied, hearing about community violence and being directly victimized by community violence were associated with higher levels of being bullied.  With respect to bullying, only hearing about community violence was linked to higher levels of bullying.  Additional findings indicated all three contextual factors (higher student engagement, neighborhood social cohesion, and positive school climate) moderated the relationship between ECV and being bullied, such that in the presence of high levels of these three environmental assets, there was no significant relationship between ECV and bullying. However, with respect to engaging in bullying behaviors, only school climate buffered the relationship between ECV and bullying.

Conclusions and Implications: ECV appears to be associated with higher risk of both bullying and being bullied.  Social work programmatic efforts and interventions promoting school engagement, neighborhood social cohesion, and positive school climate might attenuate the relationship between ECV and peer victimization, especially being bullied. The promotion of school level positive culture and community engagement program models may be effective measures for addressing concerns related to violence in the community and problematic youth interactions.