Students with Special Needs
- Students with specific learning disabilities/ intellectual learning disabilities were found to be at higher risk for greater victimization including cyber and relational and were involved in more fighting than students without disabilities.
- Students with intellectual disabilities were also more likely to perpetrate bullying and relational aggression (Swearer & Hymel, 2015).
- Students with special needs are two to three times more likely to be bullied than the general population of the school building.
- 47% of parents reported that their children had been hit by peers or siblings.
- 50% of parents reported their child was scared of their peers.
- 9% of the students with special needs were attacked by a group of students and hurt in their “private parts”.
- 12% of parents indicated their child had never been invited to a birthday party.
- 6% of students were almost always picked last for teams.
- 3% of students ate alone at lunch every day.
- Students with special needs were told not to tattle on others who bullied them almost TWICE as often as their non-special education peers (Jones & Augsutine, 2015).
Minority Groups
- School bullying victimization may be a contributing factor to why there remains a historic and persistent racial and ethnic education gap. Students report that school officials' perception of racial and ethnic minority youth tolerance for violence and bullying are higher than their white american counterparts.
- Schools are where they learn “americanization” and can be further impacted by their marginalization and can be detrimental to their treatment and they are already vulnerable (Peguero, 2012).
LGBTQ
- 84.9% of students heard ‘gay’ used in negative way frequently or often at school.
- 71.3% heard other homophobic remarks frequently or often.
- 56.9% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from teachers and other school staff.
- 81.9% were verbally harassed the past year due to sexual orientation.
- 38.3% were physically harassed due to sexual orientation (Jones & Augsutine, 2015).
- In Late 2009, the first LGBTQ federal law was passed in senate that extended the definition of what a hate crime is.
- LGBTQ are subject to harrassment from their surroundings including communities, families, and schools.
- School organization can contribute to bullying depending on the school organizations practices in marginalizing or discriminating in development of groups on campus.
- Some schools exclude based on culture, identities, beliefs, and views (for example, not allowing gay straight alliance (GSA) at your school). (Peguero, 2012)
- Contemporary lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents are known to be disproportionately at risk for experiencing negative psychosocial well-being and health problems.
- Adolescents spend a large portion of their time in the school context. Thus, schools are potential settings for positive youth development and resiliency. Nonetheless, LGBT adolescents report high rates of verbal and physical school-based victimization.
- The presence of GSA’s was associated with fewer homophobic comments from peers, less victimization related to sexual orientation and gender expression, greater school safety and school connectedness, and more instances of teachers intervention of homophobic harassment (Toomey, Ryan, Diaz, Russell, 2011).