School Context Shapes Peer Ethnic Discrimination

February 3, 2014

As with other forms of bullying, students who are verbally or physically harassed because of their membership in an ethnic group suffer declines in their psychological, social, and academic health.

Students who experience such “peer ethnic discrimination” report lower self-esteem and higher levels of depressive symptoms. They perform less well in school, view school as less important, and report less academic motivation, compared to students who report rarely experiencing discrimination.

UW–Madison education professor Amy Bellmore says that peer ethnic discrimination is particularly worrisome during adolescence. That’s because it affects two key developmental features—feeling left out at the time when fitting in with peers peaks in importance, and forming a negative opinion of oneself at the time when one’s ethnic identify is developing.

For 4 years Bellmore and colleagues studied a group of 1,072 students attending 84 high schools in southern California that varied in ethnic composition. Of these students, 82% remained in the same high school across all years they participated in the study. 
Bellmore surveyed students about peer interactions, teacher behaviors, and school norms, and asked them to indicate whether they had been called insulting names by other kids, threatened by other kids, or excluded from activities because of their ethnicity. She also asked how often they had such an experience over the preceding 6 months.

Bellmore expected to find the highest levels of discrimination in settings with only moderate ethnic diversity, and that turned out to be the case. It seems to be about power. As she explained, when two ethnic groups are present in approximately equal sizes, they may jockey for the highest status or the most power. As a result they may target the other ethnic group. In contrast, schools with the highest diversity had the lowest levels of discrimination, possibly because of a more even distribution of power among groups.

In schools where many ethnic groups are represented and no single group holds the majority, Bellmore found that ethnic diversity has a positive effect on students’ peer experiences. In these schools, compared with schools with only moderate diversity, adolescents feel safer and less victimized by peers. They report lower levels of loneliness and social anxiety, and sometimes adapt better when victimized by their peers.

Her study found that the school ethnic context, rather than a student’s membership in any particular ethnic group, is most closely associated with students’ experiences of peer ethnic discrimination. Further, her study found three factors that may protect students from peer ethnic discrimination during high school:

1. positive peer interactions among students from all ethnic groups,
2. teacher encouragement of positive interactions among students from all ethnic groups, and
3. school norms that promote ethnic and cultural diversity.

Bellmore says students’ perceptions of school climate can be modified over time. Attending to student interactions is important because reducing conflict between students from different ethnic groups can shape the school climate for incoming classes.

But other factors might be especially difficult to change. For example, a school’s interracial climate may be tied to the history of the community in which a school exists. In this case, a multilevel approach may be required, to address both school and community factors.

Bellmore says the task ahead is to identify and address the factors that have the biggest impact, so that the welfare of students can be enhanced.