Grant: Operating Grant

Few topics in child and adolescent development have united researchers, parents, teachers, and health professionals in the way that the study of peer victimization has over the past three decades. The motivation of this work is the underlying belief that peer victimization is an extremely difficult life experience that has lasting and serious negative ramifications in the lives of young people and as such should be stopped (or at least reduced) through intervention and prevention efforts. A review of the scientific research on peer victimization reveals that the introductory paragraphs in much of the published literature include a common script with three key premises: (1) victimization is prevalent in schools, (2) victimization is tied to a host of negative social and emotional adjustment indices, and (3) victimization is largely stable and the consequences of victimization are lasting. There is certainly considerable cross-sectional evidence to support the first two premises. What remains much less clear however, is the question of whether peer victimization and the concurrent correlates of these negative peer experiences are in fact long-term. The proposed study is unique in that we plan to continue to follow our large cohort (n= 600) of Canadian children as they transition into and out of high school with a focus on the interplay between peer victimization, mental health, and academic achievement. To date, we have collected annual data from participants, their families, and their schools from the time they were in Grade 5 until now, Grade 8. Using a "pathways approach", our multi-disciplinary team has and will continue to examine typical and atypical outcomes as well as divergent pathways by which outcomes are manifested by different children. This research will helps us begin to untangle the complex system of personal attributes, risk and protective factors, conditions, and processes that characterizes the long-term consequences of peer victimization.