Contextualizing Adolescent Bullying: The Overlap Between Victimization and Perpetration

Abstract

This study used data from 2019 Minnesota Student Survey to explore patterns of traditional bullying perpetration. Using conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC), results from a sample of 166,351 students show that (1) incidents of traditional bullying perpetration cluster significantly among dominant situational profiles; (2) students most likely to be bullies experience victimization, but students least likely to bully their peers rarely experience bullying victimization; and (3) being a victim of traditional bullying can increase the chances of traditional bullying perpetration by as much as 100% in some situational contexts, but can have almost no influence on perpetration in other contexts. Current findings are discussed considering existing bullying scholarship and recommendations for policy and future areas of research are presented.