Ethnic school composition and peer victimization: A focus on the interethnic school climate

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Abstract

Does de facto school segregation have an impact on ethnic minority and majority pupils’ chances of being victimized by their peers? Moreover, does the interethnic climate at school mediate the relationship between the ethnic school context and peer victimization? To answer these questions, this article examines the association between the ethnic composition of a school—as measured by the ethnic school concentration and the school's ethnic heterogeneity or diversity—and self-reported peer victimization. Multilevel analyses on data based on a survey of 2845 pupils (aged 10–12) in 68 Flemish primary schools revealed differential effects for natives and non-natives. In line with the imbalance of power thesis, and disconfirming the group threat theory, we find that non-native pupils report less peer victimization in schools with a higher minority concentration—that is, in schools with higher proportions of non-native pupils. Our findings indicate that this relationship is mediated by the interethnic school climate. In contrast, for native pupils, the concentration of ethnic minority students is not associated with peer victimization. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the literature on interethnic relations and educational policy.

Introduction

In many western countries, there is a growing concern about ethnic school segregation, as many recent studies have shown that a high concentration of ethnic minority students is unfavorable for educational achievement (for Belgium: Jacobs, Rea, & Teney, 2009; for France: Felouzis, 2005; for Germany: Kristen, 2005; for the Netherlands: Westerbeek, 1999, Driessen, 2002; for Sweden: Szulkin & Jonsson, 2006; for the United States: Bankston and Caldas, 1996, Rumberger and Palardy, 2005). Therefore, policy makers generally work towards the dispersal of immigrant and ethnic minority students (in this article we call these groups non-native pupils), believing that the mixing of students of different ethnic groups will enhance students’ academic achievement and later occupational success (Burgess et al., 2005, Mahieu, 2002).

However, other studies have pointed to the flip side of this picture, arguing that school contexts with ethnically mixed student bodies might have unintended negative consequences for non-cognitive outcomes such as self-esteem and peer victimization (Gray-Little and Hafdahl, 2000, Hanish and Guerra, 2000). These non-cognitive outcomes are not only very important because pupils have the right to feel good at school, but also because they might have an impact on cognitive outcomes (Buhs & Ladd, 2001). In other words, while attending ethnically mixed schools might have a positive impact on the educational performance of minority students, there will be no or fewer academic advantages when these students do not feel at home—if, for instance, they are frequently bullied in such school contexts. Research has shown that pupils who are victimized by their peers are more likely to face school adjustment and achievement difficulties (Buhs, Ladd, & Gary, 2006). When educational policies do not take the potential adverse consequences of desegregation into account, they run the risk of failure. Therefore, educational research should identify and explain the potential negative effects of ethnic school composition on pupils’ non-cognitive outcomes, in order to counteract them and make school desegregation efforts work.

In this study, we investigate the impact of de facto school segregation, as measured by the ethnic make-up of the school, on self-reported peer victimization. This paper is a unique contribution in three distinct ways. First, we consider three interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, to achieve a better understanding of the association between the ethnic composition of a school and peer victimization. Specifically, we draw upon the imbalance of power thesis (Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2006), group threat theory (Blalock, 1967), and constrict theory (Putnam, 2007). Secondly, we employ a further elaborated conceptualization of ethnic school composition, as we make a clear distinction between ethnic minority concentration (the proportion of non-natives at school) and ethnic diversity or heterogeneity. Previous studies tended to confuse these two distinct concepts. Third, in Flanders—the Dutch-speaking region comprising the northern part of Belgium, where the present study was conducted—research into the effects of ethnic school composition on peer victimization is simply non-existent. Through this paper, we aim to fill these research lacunae.

Section snippets

Ethnic composition and peer victimization

Providing a thorough review of the research on bullying behavior and peer victimization, Espelage and Swearer (2003) insist that victimization should be understood through a social-ecological lens: it is imperative that we investigate both the individual characteristics of students and the context-level variables that may be responsible for increased chances of peer victimization. While the bulk of the research examined bullying behavior at the individual level (e.g., Ando et al., 2005, Bowers

Theoretical background

To get a better understanding of the relationship between the ethnic composition of a school and peer victimization, we will successively consider three theoretical frameworks: the imbalance of power thesis, group threat theory, and constrict theory.

Sample

We used data gathered in 2008 and 2009 from 2845 pupils in a sample of 68 primary schools in Flanders as part of the Segregation in Primary Education in Flanders (SIPEF) project. Multistage sampling was conducted. In the first instance, in order to encompass the entire range of ethnic composition, we selected three cities in Flanders with ethnically diverse populations. Second, using data gathered from the Flemish Educational Department, we chose 116 primary schools within these selected cities

Hypothesis 1

Model 1 (Table 2) indicates that for native pupils the ethnic school concentration is not significantly related to peer victimization (γ* = .000, p = .995; γ* is the standardized gamma coefficient). However, non-native pupils attending schools with a higher ethnic minority concentration tend to report less peer victimization than those attending schools with fewer non-natives (γ* = −.093; p < 0.05). Hence, Hypothesis 1 is only supported with respect to non-native pupils.

While the pupil-level effects

Discussion and conclusion

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of de facto school segregation on peer victimization. Therefore, we examined the association between the ethnic composition of a school and the extent of pupils’ reported peer victimization. The merit of this study is twofold: we made contributions to the literature on peer victimization (see Section 6.3) and provided new insights for educational policies on segregation. Our findings were noticeably different for natives and non-native

Acknowledgments

This article was made possible through funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-project G.040908). The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their constructive comments. Special thanks to Paul Mahieu, Anneloes Vandenbroucke, Ward Nouwen and Simon Boone for their helpful comments.

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    Funding source: This research is funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-project G.040908). The Research Foundation Flanders had no involvement in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of this report, or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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