Bullying prevention
UD's Guerra briefs Congress on her bullying prevention research
9:34 a.m., Nov. 8, 2011--Because bullying is a complex behavior embedded in a social context, school-based prevention interventions must address a host of factors, a University of Delaware psychology professor told Congress at a September briefing on “Raising Healthy Children: Recent Evidence from Developmental Science.”
Sponsored by the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), the briefing focused on research from a special issue of the SRCD journal Child Development, which focused on “Raising Healthy Children” and was guest edited by UD Prof. Nancy Guerra.
Research Stories
Chronic wounds
Prof. Heck's legacy
Guerra, a professor of psychology and associate dean for research in the College of Arts and Sciences, is internationally regarded for her scholarship on social-cognitive predictors of aggression in children.
Her most recent study, published in Child Development’s special issue, examined three common predictors of bullying and victimization—self-esteem, normative beliefs supporting bullying and school climate.
She found a decrease in self-esteem as the strongest predictor of victimization, whereas a negative school climate and an increase in normative beliefs supporting bullying was the strongest predictor of bullying behavior.
“People are more likely to act in ways that are consistent with their standards of behavior,” Guerra explains. “Interventions must therefore create a standard that such [bullying] behavior is unacceptable.”
Her mixed-methods study analyzed data collected from 2,678 elementary, middle and high schools in Colorado and conducted 14 focus groups with 115 youth who did not participate in the survey.
By examining students of varying ages and grade levels, she found the likelihood of a “cycle of victimization,” in which weaker children who are less self-confident and more vulnerable than their peers become victimized, “leading to further decreases in self-esteem, leading to subsequent increases in vulnerability and continued or increasing victimization.”
About Nancy Guerra
Formerly a professor at the University of California, Riverside, Guerra joined the UD faculty in August. She has had significant international experience, working on research projects in the Caribbean, Latin America and South Africa funded by the World Bank and other entities.
Article by Artika Rangan