A Large-Scale Longitudinal Study of School Factors as Mediators from Depression and Parental Monitoring to Peer Victimization in Mainland Chinese Middle Schools

ABSTRACTThe current study longitudinally investigated how personal (depression) and family (parental monitoring) factors affect middle school peer victimization through school factors (academic performance, risky peer influence, and school belongingness) in mainland China. This study relied on large-scale 3-year longitudinal national data from mainland China with a sample of 8,357 middle school students who participated in all three waves. The results of structural equation modeling indicate that parental monitoring in Wave 1 did not predict peer victimization in Wave 3 directly, but it showed a significant indirect impact on peer victimization in Wave 3 through academic performance, risky peer influence, and school belongingness in Wave 2. Depression in Wave 1 was directly associated with peer victimization in Wave 3 and indirectly affected peer victimization in Wave 3 through academic performance, risky peer influence, and school belongingness in Wave 2. Practical implications are discussed.KEYWORDS: Peer victimizationdepressionparental monitoringrisky peersschool belongingness Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsChaoyue WuChaoyue Wu is a Ph.D student in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on examining risk factors for violence involvement and the negative impacts of victimization experience on mental and behavioral health among marginalized children and adolescents.Ron A. AstorRon A. Astor holds the Marjory Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational, and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of school violence.Rami BenbenishtyRami Benbenishty is a Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main areas of interest are the safety, welfare, and wellbeing of children, both in community normative settings, such as schools, and in out of home placements, such as foster homes and residential care.