Targeting Victims of School Bullying: A Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Bullying Victimization in the United States, 1991-2010

Qiang Fu, Duke University
Vicki L. Lamb, North Carolina Central University

By retrieving 20 waves of MTF (Monitoring the Future) datasets from 1991 to 2010, this research employed a hierarchical-age-period-cohort (HAPC) analysis to study the prevalence of bullying victimization of 8th, 10th and 12th graders (N=158,240) in the United States. When period and cohort effects are included, both HAPC analysis and a partial analysis of variance (ANOVA) point to the significance of sex, types of families and school performance in shaping the bullying epidemic in the United States. With regard to age, period and cohort effects of bullying victimization, monotonic decreases in victimization prevalence were observed from 8th to 12th graders, whereas a recent increase in bullying victimization was observed for both period and cohort effects.