Direct and Indirect Association between Adverse Family Experiences and Bullying Among Urban African American Adolescents in Chicago

Background: African American youth living in poor urban areas are more likely to live in a single-parent home, which might lead to a decrease in parental monitoring. As a result, the ability to build strong bonding between them might be disrupted, which can impact youths’ social behaviors. Adult family members’ crime, addiction, or mental health might negatively impact children’s emotional, cognitive, and social development. African American youth with a history of family incarceration, substance abuse, and mental illness are likely to have a low level of future orientation, which can increase bullying risks. However, few studies have been conducted to examine the association between adolescent future orientation and adverse family experiences and how they might relate to bullying behavior. The current study examined both direct and indirect associations between adverse family history (incarcerated adult family member, substance abuse, and mental illness) and adolescent bullying behavior.

Method: Study participants consisted of 637 African American adolescents (ages 12-21; 45.5% males and 54.2% females) and whose parents’ incomes were below the city’s average. Approximately 75% received government assistance. Measures for the study included sex, age, grade in school, government assistance, adult family incarceration, adult family substance use, adult family mental illness, low future orientation, and bullying perpetration. Analyses included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s coefficient correlation, and multivariate ordinary least squares regression. The PROCESS macro Version 3 in SPSS 25.0 was used to examine the direct and indirect associations between adverse family experiences (adult family incarceration, adult family substance use, and adult family mental illness) and adolescent bullying perpetration mediated by low future orientation. The study controlled for biological sex, age, government assistance, and grades in school.

Results: Adult family substance use and bullying perpetration were mediated by low future orientation (ab =.08, BCa: CI [0.01, 0.18]). There was a significant association between adult family substance use and bullying perpetration (C: β = .67, p < .01) after controlling for the covariates. Adult family mental illness and adolescent bullying perpetration were found to be mediated by low future orientation (ab =.02, BCa: CI [0.01, 0.29]). A significant association between adult family mental illness and bullying perpetration (C: β = .21, p < .001) was also found, after controlling for the covariates.

Implications: African American adolescents who have adult family members with a history of substance use and mental illness display low levels of future orientation, which can contribute to bullying perpetration. These study findings demonstrate a need to better understand how adverse African American family events are related to adolescent bullying, particularly among adolescents in a low-resourced community where bullying prevention and intervention programs are limited. Overall, practitioners might consider assessing low future orientation as a component of bullying prevention efforts. More importantly, social workers need to thoroughly assess adverse family experiences of urban adolescents, which are attributed to a lack of resources in the neighborhood, and how they might affect their behavior.