This study uses latent class analysis (LCA) to empirically identify victimization groups during middle school. Approximately 2,000 urban, public middle school students (mean age in sixth grade = 11.57) reported on their peer victimization during the Fall and Spring semesters of their sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Independent LCA analyses at each semester yielded 3 victim classes based on victimization degree rather than type (e.g., physical vs. relational). The most victimized class always represented the smallest proportion of the sample, decreasing from 20% in sixth grade to 6% by the end of eighth grade. This victimized class also always reported feeling less safe at school concurrently and more depressed than others 1 semester later, illustrating the validity of the LCA approach.

With a sample of 1,630 sixth-grade students from 77 classrooms, the authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine how ethnicity within context and classroom social disorder influenced the association between peer victimization and social-psychological adjustment (loneliness and social anxiety). Victimized students in classrooms where many classmates shared their ethnicity reported feeling the most loneliness and social anxiety. Additionally, classroom-level social disorder served as a moderator such that the association between victimization and anxiety was stronger in classrooms with low social disorder. Both findings were interpreted as evidence that problem behavior deviating from what is perceived as normative in a particular context heightens maladjustment. The authors discuss implications for studying ethnicity and classroom behavioral norms as context variables in peer relations.

An ethnically diverse sample of 6th-grade students completed peer nomination procedures that were used to create subgroups of students with reputations as victims, aggressors, aggressive victims, and socially adjusted (neither aggressive nor victimized). Self-report data on psychological adjustment, attributions for peer harassment, and perceived school climate were gathered. In addition, homeroom teachers rated participating students on academic engagement and students' grades were collected from school records. Victims reported the most negative self-views, aggressors enjoyed the most positive self-views, and aggressive victims fell between these two groups, although their psychological profile more closely resembled that of victims. However, all three subgroups encountered more school adjustment problems when compared to their socially adjusted classmates. Different pathways to school adjustment problems for aggressors and victims were examined. For victims, characterological self-blame for victimization and psychological maladjustment were the key mediators, whereas for aggressors, the significant pathway was mainly through perceived unfairness of school rules. Analyses by ethnicity revealed that African American boys were most likely to be perceived as aggressive and as aggressive victims and they were doing most poorly in school. Implications for intervention with subgroups of problem behavior youth and the particular vulnerabilities of African American adolescents were discussed.

Ethnically diverse high school contexts present unique social opportunities for youth to form interethnic relationships, but they may also subject students to certain social challenges such as peer ethnic discrimination. With a sample of 1,072 high school students (55% girls; 54% Latino, 20% African American, 14% Asian, 12% White) attending 84 high schools, school context factors that protect students' exposure to peer ethnic discrimination across the high school years were investigated with a three-level hierarchical linear model. Each spring for four consecutive years (grades 9-12), self-reported peer ethnic discrimination, interracial climate at school, and perceived school ethnic composition were assessed. At the school level, objective high school ethnic composition data were collected. Peer ethnic discrimination was found to decline slightly across the high school years. Above and beyond this decline, more positive perceptions of the school interracial climate and both objective and perceived numerical ethnic majority status predicted lower levels of peer ethnic discrimination. Taken together, the results highlight the significance of both objective (e.g., ethnic composition) and subjective (e.g., interracial climate) aspects of the school ethnic context to students' high school social experiences.

This study examined the mediating role of selfblaming attributions on peer victimization-maladjustment relations in middle school and the moderating role of classroom ethnic diversity. Latino and African American 6th grade participants (N = 1105, 56% female) were recruited from middle schools in which they were either members of the numerical majority ethnic group, the numerical minority, or one of several ethnic groups in ethnically diverse schools. Peer nomination data were gathered in the Fall of 6th grade to determine which students had reputations as victims of harassment and selfreport data on self-blame for peer harassment and the adjustment outcomes of depressive symptoms and feelings of self-worth were gathered in the Spring of 6th grade, approximately 6 months later. A mediational model in which self-blame partly explained the relation between victimization and maladjustment was supported among students from the majority ethnic group in their classroom but not among students from the minority group. The usefulness of including ethnic diversity as an important context variable in studies of peer victimization during early adolescence was discussed.