Profiles of School-Based Peer Aggression

Research on school-based aggression has often described children’s involvement in peer aggression as either a target or aggressor and has not explored how children may endorse various levels of involvement. Using Latent Class Analysis, this study identified profiles of school-based peer aggression among the same sample of children in third and again in sixth grade. The sample consisted of 927 children who were part of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development. Several profiles emerged indicating various levels of involvement as well as the use of different forms of aggression (physical and verbal). The main profiles that emerged were children who endorsed being both perpetrators and targets, children who endorsed being targets, and children who endorsed low involvement. Further analysis revealed that profiles did not fit equally well for boys and girls. Self-reported involvement increased from third to sixth grade with the main differences emerging because boys endorsed being strictly a verbal and physical aggressor and girls endorsed being aggressors and targets of verbal aggression only. Parent reports of children’s externalizing and internalizing problems as well as teacher perceptions of the children’s social behavior were incorporated into the study in order to describe each profile in more detail. The findings of this study indicate that child involvement in school-based peer aggression is complex with children endorsing various levels of involvement, perpetrating or being targeted, throughout the school year.