Content area
Abstract
Peer relationships contribute to human development and their effects are especially prevalent during adolescence. Negative peer relations, such as peer victimization, are related to poor outcomes, including low academic performance, depression, and anxiety. Children who are withdrawn are at greater risk of victimization. Likewise, children considered to be atypical of their gender are more likely to suffer victimization. The current short-term longitudinal study seeks to understand risk factors of victimization in early adolescence, namely withdrawal, gender typicality, and gender atypicality. Data was collected on 181 early adolescents from two public elementary schools in Montreal, Canada. Peer nominations assessed peer victimization, withdrawal, gender typicality, and gender atypicality of fifth-graders at the beginning and end of a school year. A model with time, and gender typicality and atypicality as moderators in the relationship between withdrawal and victimization was proposed. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and correlations were run. Multilevel modeling was used to address the relationships and to account for nonindependence of the within-subjects variables, victimization, withdrawal, and time. Support was found for a three-level model. Withdrawal, time, and gender atypicality were predictors of victimization. Gender typicality at the beginning of the school year, gender atypicality, and time moderated the relationship between withdrawal and victimization.
