Immigrant children and school bullying: the “unrecognized” victim?

Abstract

Purpose

The current study aims to investigate whether the victimization of immigrant children is more likely to be unrecognized by teachers and parents and what demographic factors contribute to children's unrecognized bullying victimization.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from the publicly accessible US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort, 2011 were utilized (N = 10,587 children across 2,194 schools), and the hierarchical linear model was used for modeling.

Findings

Among all bullying victims included in this study, only 32% were recognized by both parents and teachers. Bullied children who had only foreign-born parent/s were more likely to be unnoticed by adults than those who had only US-born parent/s. Among all bullied children, girls were more likely to be overlooked by adults than boys, and Asian and Hispanic children were more likely to be overlooked by adults than White children.

Social implications

To better protect and support all victimized children, schools should develop innovative strategies to engage more immigrant parents; teachers and parents need to learn how not to rely on social and cultural biases to guide their interpretations and response to school bullying; parents and teachers should keep good communication with children.

Originality/value

Previous research demonstrates that immigrant children have a high risk of being bullied in school, but it is unclear whether parents and teachers are sufficiently aware of their victimization. This paper is the first study to demonstrate how parents' nativity, gender and race/ethnicity are associated with children's unrecognized bullying victimization.

Citation

Morales, D.X. (2021), "Immigrant children and school bullying: the “unrecognized” victim?", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 41 No. 9/10, pp. 1026-1037. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-08-2020-0414