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The influence of the cyber-social environment on fear of victimization: Cyberbullying and school

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Abstract

Using a nationally representative sample of over 3500 students aged 12–18 years, the present study examines the relationship between cyberbullying and fear of victimization through a five-stage analysis. The analyses conducted address two primary research questions. First, whether or not cyberbullying victimization has a direct relationship to fear of victimization, net of the effects of traditionally important controls. Second, in further exploration of the cyberbullying – fear relationship – what other factors still have a direct relationship to fear of victimization among those students experiencing cyberbullying. Logistic regression modeling of the relationship finds that cyberbullying victimization does produce a positive and significant linkage to fear of victimization net of the effects of other past victimization experiences, and a disorderly school environment. Further analysis suggests that among those who report experiencing cyberbullying little else correlates to fear of victimization.

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Notes

  1. Original responses were coded categorically where respondent options included ‘never’, ‘once or twice this school year’, ‘once or twice a month’, ‘once or twice a week’ and ‘almost every day’. Minimally, a small portion of victims of cyber bullying in the present study have indicated once or twice this year.

  2. The most commonly reported drug was marijuana (1195), followed by prescription drugs illegally obtained (749) and alcoholic beverages (708).

  3. Nearly one-third of the respondents (1450) reported that they knew for sure that another student was on drugs at school.

  4. The measure addressing school building security is standardized so that positive scores reflect greater than average number of security measures at school. As such, a measure with a mean very near to 0 is created and used in the analysis to maximize variation. Individual items within the measure include elements of both procedural security like locker checks and visitor sign-in policies, as well as physical security such as metal detectors and security cameras. These differences likely account for the lower α index item, yet in exploratory analysis featuring the security measure suggests that regardless of construction the measure has little impact in the full model.

  5. Supplemental analysis, refining the models presented in Tables 4 and 5 by removing non-significant variables one at a time ultimately allow additional predictors to achieve significance.

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  1. College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Beto Criminal Justice Center, Box 2296, Huntsville, 77341-2296, TX, USA

    Ryan Randa

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Randa, R. The influence of the cyber-social environment on fear of victimization: Cyberbullying and school. Secur J 26, 331–348 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2013.22

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