School_climate_peer_victimiza.pdf

School Climate, Peer Victimization, and Academic Achievement:
Results From a Multi-Informant Study

Weijun Wang, Tracy Vaillancourt,
and Heather L. Brittain

University of Ottawa

Patricia McDougall
University of Saskatchewan

Amanda Krygsman and David Smith
University of Ottawa

Charles E. Cunningham
McMaster University

J. D. Haltigan
University of Ottawa

Shelley Hymel
University of British Columbia

School-level school climate was examined in relation to self-reported peer victimization
and teacher-rated academic achievement (grade point average; GPA). Participants included
a sample of 1,023 fifth-grade children nested within 50 schools. Associations between peer
victimization, school climate, and GPA were examined using multilevel modeling, with
school climate as a contextual variable. Boys and girls reported no differences in victim-
ization by their peers, although boys had lower GPAs than girls. Peer victimization was
related to lower GPA and to a poorer perception of school climate (individual-level), which
was also associated with lower GPA. Results of multilevel analyses revealed that peer
victimization was again negatively associated with GPA, and that lower school-level
climate was associated with lower GPA. Although no moderating effects of school-level
school climate or sex were observed, the relation between peer victimization and GPA
remained significant after taking into account (a) school-level climate scores, (b) individual
variability in school-climate scores, and (c) several covariates— ethnicity, absenteeism,
household income, parental education, percentage of minority students, type of school, and
bullying perpetration. These findings underscore the importance of a positive school climate
for academic success and viewing school climate as a fundamental collective school
outcome. Results also speak to the importance of viewing peer victimization as being
harmfully linked to students’ academic performance.

Keywords: peer victimization, academic achievement, school climate, bullying, multilevel modeling

Children have the right to learn and interact in
a safe environment (Convention on the Rights of
the Child, 1989). Schools, as a major component

of a broader community to which children belong,
should be safe, engaging, and inclusive places that
afford opportunities for them to develop their per-

Weijun Wang, Counselling, Faculty of Education,
University of Ottawa; Tracy Vaillancourt, Counselling,
Faculty of Education, and School of Psychology, Fac-
ulty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa; Heather
L. Brittain, Counselling, Faculty of Education, Univer-
sity of Ottawa; Patricia McDougall, Department of Psy-
chology, University of Saskatchewan; Amanda Krygs-
man and David Smith, Counselling, Faculty of
Education, University of Ottawa; Charles E. Cunning-
ham, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuro-
sciences, McMaster University; J. D. Haltigan, Counsel-
ling, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa;

Shelley Hymel, Faculty of Education, University of
British Columbia.

This study was supported by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Cana-
dian Institutes for Heath Research.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair,
Children’s Mental Health and Violence Prevention Fac-
ulty of Education and School of Psychology, 145 Jean-
Jacques-Lussier, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 6N5 Canada. E-mail: tracy.vaillancourt@
uottawa.ca

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School Psychology Quarterly © 2014 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 29, No. 3, 360 –377 1045-3830/14/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/spq0000084

360

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/spq0000084

sonality, talents, and cognitive and physical abil-
ities to their fullest potential. Unfortunately,
schools are not always safe environments for stu-
dents (Grover, Boberiene, & Limber, in press;
Robers, Kemp, & Truman, 2013). For example, in
a large study of Canadian students (5,493 girls and
5,659 boys) in Grades 4 to 12, Vaillancourt, Brit-
tain, et al. (2010) found that 21% of elementary
school students and 17% of secondary school stu-
dents reported feeling unsafe at school.

Perceptions of safety in school can be directly
linked to student experiences with peer victimiza-
tion and/or bullying (Vaillancourt, Brittain, et al.,
2010). Bullying is unwanted aggressive behavior
that is intentional, repetitive, and involves an im-
balance of power between two or more individu-
als (e.g., Olweus, 1993). Bullying may include
direct actions, such as hitting, taking or damaging
possessions, taunting, or name-calling, or indirect
actions, such as social exclusion, rumor-spread-
ing, or manipulation of friendships (i.e., relational
or social bullying). Bullying may also involve the
use of electronic communications, which is often
referred to as cyberbullying (Kowalski, Limber, &
Agatston, 2012).

Studies of North American children and youth
suggest that as many as 30% of students are bul-
lied regularly at school, and of these students, 8%
to 10% are abused on a daily basis (Nansel et al.,
2001; Vaillancourt, Trinh, et al., 2010). The ex-
perience of being bullied in schools may have
long-term negative effects on the mental and
physical health and academic achievement of chil-
dren and youth (e.g., Anthony, Wessler, & Sebian,
2010; Arseneault, Bowes, & Shakoor, 2010; Gini
& Pozzoli, 2009). In the present study, we exam-
ined the relation between peer victimization and
students’ academic achievement, taking into ac-
count school climate.

Peer Victimization and Academic
Achievement

Research on the link between peer victimiza-
tion and academic variables has shown that bul-
lied children are more likely than their nonbullied
peers to avoid school (Kochenderfer & Ladd,
1996; Rigby, 1996; P. K. Smith, Talamelli,
Cowie, Naylor, & Chauhan, 2004; Vaillancourt,
Brittain, McDougall, & Duku, 2013), and to have
lower academic achievement on average (Eisen-
berg, Neumark-Sztainer, & Perry, 2003; Vaillan-
court et al., 2013). Buhs and colleagues (Buhs,

Ladd, & Herald, 2006; Buhs, Ladd, & Herald-
Brown, 2010) followed nearly 400 children in the
United States from kindergarten through fifth
grade in a study examining the relation between
teacher-reported peer exclusion, self-reported vic-
timization, and a standardized measure of stu-
dents’ academic achievement administered by re-
searchers. They found that the exclusion and
victimization that some children experienced upon
entering kindergarten persisted through the subse-
quent school years. Notably, children who were
excluded and victimized by their peers were also
less likely than their accepted peers to participate
in classroom activities and attend school, and,
ultimately, they performed more poorly on a test
of student achievement. Similarly, in a longitudi-
nal study of middle school students, Juvonen,
Wang, and Espinoza (2011) found that middle
school students’ grade point averages (GPAs) and
teacher-rated academic engagement were pre-
dicted by both peer- and self-perceptions of vic-
timization. Specifically, Juvonen et al. found that a
one-unit increase in mean level of self-perceived
peer victimization (on a scale of 1 to 4) was
associated with a decrease in average GPA by 0.3
scale points (across six time points). They sug-
gested that the effect of self-perceived peer vic-
timization on GPA “can account for up to an
average of 1.5 letter grade decrease in one aca-
demic subject (e.g., math) across the 3 years of
middle school” (p. 167). However, a recent meta-
analysis of the association between peer victim-
ization and academic achievement showed a small
but significant negative relation between these two
variables (Nakamoto & Schwartz, 2010). Naka-
moto and Schwartz (2010) suggest that a third
variable may account for (i.e., buffer or exacer-
bate) this negative relationship, and that “further
exploration will be needed before any conclusions
can be drawn” (p. 223) on the association between
peer victimization and academic achievement.

Peer Victimization and School Climate

Peer victimization and students’ academic
achievement are often linked to school climate.
School climate refers to the quality and charac-
ter of school life (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, &
Pickeral, 2009), and involves the social, emo-
tional, and academic experiences of students,
their family members, and school personnel.
School climate can be summarized as the col-
lective beliefs, values, and attitudes that prevail

361SCHOOL CLIMATE, PEER VICTIMIZATION, AND GPA

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at school (Cohen, 2009; Koth, Bradshaw, &
Leaf, 2008; Modin & Östberg, 2009). Thus,
school climate is more than an individual expe-
rience. According to Cohen et al. (2009), school
climate includes four essential dimensions: (a)
safety (including clear and consistent rules, the
extent to which individuals feel physically safe,
attitudes about violence and bullying), (b)
teaching and learning (such as the quality of
instruction, the extent to which social-emotional
and academic learning is valued, whether pro-
fessional development is systematic and ongo-
ing), (c) relationships (including respect for di-
versity, a sense of connectedness among
members of the school community, a pattern of
positive relationships between and among stu-
dents, educators, and families), and (d) environ-
ment (including cleanliness, , appeal of the
facilities, and adequate resources).

Researchers investigating school climate also
use other terms and constructs to study and
measure school climate (e.g., school connected-
ness, school engagement, student satisfaction
with school). For example, in a literature sum-
mary of measures that have often been used to
explore students’ relationship to school, Libbey
(2004) identified nine constructs that are partic-
ularly relevant to understanding school climate:
safety, peer relations, teacher support, academic
engagement, discipline and fairness, belonging,
school liking, student voice, and extracurricular
activities.

An important focus of school-climate re-
search is on whether schools are places of com-
munity for students. As defined by McMillan
and Chavis (1986), community refers not only
to a territorial or geographic unit but also to the
quality or character of human relationships.
Members of a community feel that they belong,
that they matter to one another, and that their
needs are met through their commitment to one
another. School as a community reflects the
collective experience of students, school adults,
and parents in schools, in addition to their indi-
vidual experiences and engagement.

Studies have indicated that students who are
victimized by their peers hold poorer percep-
tions of school climate. For example, students
who reported being bullied by peers also re-
ported lower school connectedness relative to
nonbullied students (O’Brennan & Furlong,
2010; You et al., 2008). Corrigan, Klein, and
Isaacs (2010) found that students’ trust in teach-

ers was negatively related to the likelihood of
being victimized at school, but positively re-
lated to their motivation to learn, concern for
fellow students, sense of school community,
and academic self-esteem.

School Climate and Academic Achievement

Teacher support is associated with students’
positive academic, social, and behavioral out-
comes (Bryan et al., 2012). For example, Jen-
nings and Greenberg (2009) suggest that the
quality of students’ relationships with their
teachers is related to student motivation, social
and academic skills, and overall mental health.
Teachers’ perceptions of students’ ability to
meet their expectations (e.g., academic perfor-
mance) strongly predicted teachers’ trust in stu-
dents (Van Maele & Van Houtte, 2011), and
teachers’ perceptions of school contexts (e.g.,
organizational justice) have been shown to be
associated with students’ reports of their psy-
chosocial school environment, mental health,
academic performance, and absenteeism be-
cause of truancy (Elovainio et al., 2011).

A positive school climate may improve stu-
dents’ academic achievement. For example,
Bryan and colleagues (2012) found that school
bonding (i.e., attachment to school and school
involvement) contributed to students’ academic
achievement in mathematics in a sample of
10,426 12th graders. In a longitudinal study of
students making the transition to middle school,
Niehaus, Rudasill, and Rakes (2012) assessed
school connectedness and academic outcomes
(i.e., GPA) at three times during sixth grade and
found that students who reported growth or
slight decline in school support across the sixth-
grade year had higher GPAs at the end of the
school year than students who reported steeper
declines in school support. Another study indi-
cated that school bonding in the eighth grade
was associated with a greater likelihood of ac-
ademic achievement (i.e., school recorded test
scores) later that same school year, which, in
turn, predicted less school drop out by the end
of the 10th grade (Catalano, Haggerty, Oesterle,
Fleming, & Hawkins, 2004). In an intervention
designed to improve school climate and school
connectedness in high school, Osher and Kend-
ziora (2010) found that positive changes in
school community were related to significant
improvements in scores on statewide achieve-

362 WANG ET AL.

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ment tests (e.g., reading, writing, and mathe-
matics).

Academic difficulties and challenges may
trigger students’ negative perceptions of school
climate. For example, students with lower aca-
demic self-efficacy (McMahon, Wernsman, &
Rose, 2009), those who report lower academic
performance (Bonny, Britto, Klostermann, Hur-
nung, & Slap, 2000; Thompson, Iachan, Over-
peck, Ross, & Gross, 2006), and those held back
a grade (Bonny et al., 2000; Fan, Williams, &
Corkin, 2011) have been shown to feel less
connected to school. An atmosphere in which
students do not feel comfortable taking per-
sonal, group, and academic risks may limit their
engagement in schools (Osher & Kendziora,
2010).

School Climate as a School-Level Variable

There has been little research focusing on
school climate as a school-level variable, de-
spite H. W. Marsh et al.’s (2012) strong sug-
gestion that climate should be represented as a
Level 2 (L2) variable, aggregated at the class-
room or school level in statistical models. In-
deed, to our knowledge, only a few such studies
exist. Specifically, Gregory et al. (2010) found
that high availability of caring school adults
(aggregated at the school-level from students’
perceptions of school support), coupled with
fair and consistent discipline (aggregated at the
school-level from students’ perceptions of
school structure), was associated with lower
rates of bullying and victimization among stu-
dents in high schools. Eliot, Cornell, Gregory,
and Fan (2010) found that high school students
who perceived their teachers and other school
staff as supportive, and were within schools that
had more supportive environments (aggregated
at the school-level from students’ perceptions of
supportive school climate), were more likely to
indicate that they would seek help for bullying
and threats of violence. Eliot et al. also found
that school-level supportive school climate was
related to school-level help-seeking attitudes. In
addition, Gregory, Cornell, and Fan (2011) ex-
amined the relation between school-level school
climate (i.e., school structure, school support)
and suspension rates among high school stu-
dents. They found that student-rated discipline
(school structure) and availability of supportive
school adults (support) were related to school-

wide suspensions of students of different groups
of races and ethnicities. For example, schools
with low discipline (e.g., low rates of students’
perceptions that school rules as fair and uni-
formly enforced) had the highest school-wide
suspension rates for Black and White students.
McNeely, Nonnemaker, and Blum (2002) also
showed that the school environment, as re-
flected in positive classroom management cli-
mates, participation in extracurricular activities,
tolerant disciplinary policies, and small school
size, were related to higher school-level school
connectedness. In each of these studies, school-
level scores were created by averaging individ-
ual student scores within each school.

Present Study: Peer Victimization, School
Climate, and Academic Achievement

In sum, a healthy school climate has a posi-
tive connection to academic achievement,
whereas peer victimization is associated with
poor achievement. There is an association be-
tween a person’s perception of being bullied
and their negative appraisal of their school’s
climate. This association should be expected,
considering that (a) safety and belonging are
core components of school climate, and (b) in-
dividuals are reporting on both their perception
of victimization and their school’s climate,
which likely leads to inflated associations (i.e.,
common method variance). What remains un-
clear is the nature of associations between peer
victimization, school climate, and academic
outcomes.

In a recent review of school-climate research,
Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, and Higgins-
D’Alessandro (2013) argued that “in schools
without supportive norms, structures, and rela-
tionships, students are more likely to experience
violence, peer victimization, and punitive disci-
plinary actions, often accompanied by high lev-
els of absenteeism and reduced academic
achievement” (p. 360). However, this argument
was based on separate studies rather than on a
single study linking peer victimization, aca-
demic achievement, and school climate. The
American Psychological Association (2013) has
also pointed out that peer victimization and
school climate are linked to children’s academic
achievement, learning, and development.
Again, however, this position does not seem to
be based on any study that has formally exam-

363SCHOOL CLIMATE, PEER VICTIMIZATION, AND GPA

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ined these variables in consort. According to
Espelage, Hong, Rao, and Low (2013), most
studies examining the links between peer vic-
timization and academic outcomes have fo-
cused on the mediating role of psychological
adjustment, with far fewer studies examining
potential moderating influences of school cli-
mate. Espelage et al. further suggested that un-
derstanding these relations is critical in devel-
oping effective prevention and intervention
efforts.

In the present study, we examined the ef-
fects of self-reported peer victimization on
teacher-reported students’ GPA, while taking
into account school climate as a contextual
(i.e., school-level; Level 2 [L2]) moderating
variable using multilevel modeling. This ap-
proach is novel in that most studies have
examined school climate from the perspective
of the individual (Level 1 [L1], e.g.,
O’Brennan & Furlong, 2010; You et al.,
2008), with only a few studies examining the
associations between school climate at the
school level in relation to peer victimization
(Eliot et al., 2010; Gregory et al., 2010). To
our knowledge, no published study to date has
examined the moderating role of school cli-
mate (L2) on peer victimization and students’
academic performance (i.e., GPA).

It is possible that students can be bullied
and yet be in a school in which most students
report a positive school climate. The effects
of this type of disjointed experience may pro-
vide protection against harm and isolation for
bullied students, and further buffer the nega-
tive impact of peer victimization on academic
achievement. For example, in a study exam-
ining the impact of teacher–student relation-
ships on peer preference for aggressive stu-
dents, Hughes, Cavell, and Willson (2001)
found that perceptions of teacher support had
a buffering effect on peer social preference
for aggressive students. Specifically, they
found that students took cues from their
teacher in determining whether a peer was
likable or not. Accordingly, when examining
the moderating role of school climate, we
expected that peer-victimized students in
schools with lower (i.e., more negative)
school-level climate would have lower grades
than peer-victimized students in schools with
higher (i.e., more positive) school-level cli-
mate. We also expected that, consistent with

previous research, experiences of peer victim-
ization would negatively impact students’
GPA, and that positive school climate would
be related to better academic functioning.
Moreover, considering that (a) boys tend to
report greater peer victimization than girls
(Cook, Williams, Guerra, Kim, & Sadek,
2010), (b) girls tend to do better than boys
academically (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006;
Vaillancourt et al., 2013), and (c) girls appear
to have more positive perceptions of school
climate than boys (Koth et al., 2008; Mitchell,
Bradshaw, & Leaf, 2010; Niehaus et al.,
2012), we also explored the possible moder-
ating role of sex.

Finally, we considered several covariates in
our examination of the moderating roles of
school climate and sex on the relation be-
tween peer victimization and students’ aca-
demic achievement. Children of different
races or ethnic groups may experience differ-
ent amounts of bullying. In a recent analysis
of the health behavior in school-aged children
data involving 7,182 U.S. students in Grades
6 through 10, Wang, Iannotti, and Nansel
(2009) found that Black adolescents reported
more involved in bullying perpetration (phys-
ical, verbal, and cyber), but less involvement
in victimization (verbal and relational), than
White, Hispanic, and adolescents of other rac-
es/ethnicities. Hispanic adolescents were
more likely to be categorized as physical bul-
lies or cyber “bully victims” than White ad-
olescents. However, in Canada, few studies
have found significant racial/ethnic differ-
ences in terms of bullying and victimization
(e.g., McKenney, Pepler, Craig, & Connolly,
2006; Pepler, Connolly, & Craig, 1999; Schu-
mann, Craig, & Rosu, 2013). Ethnicity is also
associated with students’ perceptions of
school climate (Fan et al., 2011; Koth et al.,
2008). For example, some studies show that
students of minority racial groups are less
likely to seek help for a variety of behavior
problems (Koth et al., 2008). Minority stu-
dents are also less likely to regard school
adults as supportive sources of help for a
problem (T. Marsh & Cornell, 2001). In the
United States, Black students, compared with
White and Asian students, tend to feel less
connected to schools (Bonny et al., 2000;
McNeely et al., 2002), and students who
come from culturally or linguistically diverse

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backgrounds experience greater challenges in
bonding to school (Nasir, Jones, & McLaugh-
lin, 2011; Sulkowski, Demaray, & Lazarus,
2012). Considering evidence that school peer
racial/ethnic composition has important ef-
fects on individual-level achievement (Lee,
2007; Warikoo & Carter, 2009), and family,
school, and community are all important fac-
tors related to children’s racial/ethnic atti-
tudes and to their academic achievement (E.
P. Smith, Atkins, & Connell, 2003), we
controlled for student race/ethnicity (White
and non-White, in our case). We also con-
trolled for the proportion of minority students
as a contextual variable.

Although studies have indicated that absen-
teeism is not correlated with peer victimiza-
tion (Forero, McLellan, Rissel, & Bauman,
1999; Gastic, 2008; Vaillancourt et al., 2013),
GPA has been shown to be negatively asso-
ciated with absenteeism (Gottfried, 2009;
Vaillancourt et al., 2013). As well, socioeco-
nomic status (SES) has been shown to be a
robust predictor of bullying involvement (Pe-
skin, Tortolero, & Markham, 2006) and aca-
demic functioning (e.g., Duncan, Morris, &
Rodrigues, 2011; Sirin, 2005). Accordingly,
we also controlled for absenteeism and the
SES indicators of household income and pa-
rental education (L1 and L2) to allow for a
more rigorous exploration of how peer vic-
timization, school climate, and academic
achievement interacted with one another. In
this study, some students attended schools
that included students from kindergarten (K)
to Grade 8, whereas others attended schools
that included students from K to Grades 5 or
6. Given these differences, we controlled for
school type in our analyses. Lastly, consider-
ing that students who bully others may expe-
rience poorer school adjustment (Nansel et
al., 2001), we controlled for bullying perpe-
tration in our analyses.

Method

Participants

Participants were recruited from a random
sample of 501 elementary schools in a southern
Ontario city, reflecting the demographics of the
entire public school board from which they
were drawn (e.g., compared on ethnicity, house-

hold income, parental education, gender distri-
bution, and school type). Twenty-six schools
housed students from K to Grade 8, 15 schools
housed students from K to Grade 5, and another
nine housed students from K to Grade 6. In the
spring of 2008, all Grade 5 classrooms in these
schools were approached for recruitment. A to-
tal of 1,535 students were eligible for participa-
tion and 1,121 students received parental per-
mission to participate. On the days of the data
collection, 1,023 predominately White (75.5%;
see Measures section for a breakdown of eth-
nicity), fifth-grade students (Mage � 10.93,
SD � 0.40; 53.5% girls) were present and par-
ticipated in the research. Participants came from
primarily middle class families with a median
household income of $70,000 to $80,000.2

Within the participating school board in the
2007/2008 school year, the average classroom
size was 25.5 students (Grades 4 to 8). In the
2008/2009 school year, the average classroom
size was 25.6 students (Grades 4 to 8). In June
2007, the Legislative Assembly of the Province
of Ontario passed Bill 212, the Education
Amendment Act (Progressive Discipline and
School Safety Act), which compelled all school
boards in Ontario to develop and implement
policies on bullying prevention and intervention
effective February 1, 2008.

Procedures

Parents provided active consent for their
child’s participation in a student survey, access
to Ontario Student Records (i.e., grade reports),
and their own participation in a telephone inter-
view. Students with parental consent also pro-
vided assent for their survey data to be used. All
procedures were approved by the investigators’
university research ethics boards.

Students completed paper-and-pencil surveys
in their classrooms. All participating classrooms
received a book, and each student who returned
a signed consent form (regardless of whether
they received parental consent to participate)
received a package of sugar-free gum. Parent

1 Although 51 schools were recruited at Time 1, one
school opted out of the classroom portion of the study.
Students in this school did not have data for Time 1, but
were retained in the longitudinal study.

2 The median income for the city from which participants
were recruited at Time 1 was $76,222, and for the province
it was $70,910 (Statistics Canada, 2008).

365SCHOOL CLIMATE, PEER VICTIMIZATION, AND GPA

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interviews were conducted over the phone by a
trained research assistant or using a paper-and-
pencil version for those …