Testing the causal hypothesis that repeated bullying victimization leads to lower levels of educational attainment: A sibling-comparison analysis

Testing the causal hypothesis that repeated bullying victimization leads to lower levels of educational attainment: A sibling-comparison analysis

Existing research suggests that repeated bullying victimization is associated with lower levels of educational attainment. However, it is difficult to ascertain whether a true causal association exists since previously reported associations may be confounded by genetic and shared environmental facto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of school violence Vol. 18; no. 2; pp. 272 - 284
Main Authors: Connolly, Eric J., Kavish, Nicholas, Cooke, Eric M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Routledge 03-04-2019
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects:
Attribution Theory
Bullying
Bullying victimization
Causality
College Graduates
Correlation
education
Educational Attainment
Environmental aspects
Environmental Influences
Families & family life
Family (Sociological Unit)
Family Income
Genetics
High School Graduates
Hypothesis testing
Intelligence
Juvenile Gangs
Longitudinal Studies
National Surveys
NLSY97
Parent Background
Risk
Sibling Relationship
sibling-comparison
Siblings
Victimization
Victims
Youth
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Summary:Existing research suggests that repeated bullying victimization is associated with lower levels of educational attainment. However, it is difficult to ascertain whether a true causal association exists since previously reported associations may be confounded by genetic and shared environmental factors that affect both repeated bullying victimization and overall educational attainment. The present study aimed to address this issue by analyzing a sample of sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to examine between-family associations (where observable confounds are controlled for) and within-family associations (where observable and unobserved genetic and shared environmental confounds are controlled for). The results revealed that bullying victimization significantly reduced the odds of high school and college graduation when estimating between-family effects, but were rendered nonsignificant once within-family effects were controlled for. Implications of these results for future research on bullying victimization and educational attainment are discussed.
ISSN:1538-8220
1538-8239
DOI:10.1080/15388220.2018.1477603