Varying Experiences of Cyber Victimization among Middle and High School Students

Background Although cyber victimization (CV) occurs in both middle school (MS) and high school (HS)-and these experiences appear to differ between boys and girls-to our knowledge, no studies have directly examined these differences across specific acts of CV. Further, limited research has examined school environment factors, such as school safety and attachment, as they relate to CV. Objectives The current study compared CV experiences reported by boys and girls in both MS and HS as well as examined CV's association with perceived school safety and school attachment. Method Participants were 286 MS and 304 HS students (52% boys) from a small, rural Midwestern community in the United States. Self-reported measures were collected. Results HS girls reported experiencing more CV than MS girls on 5 of the 6 CV acts examined. Additionally, HS girls reported experiencing more CV on 3 of the acts compared to MS boys. In general, HS boys and HS girls report similar rates of CV, with the exception of HS girls experiencing higher levels of "people saying mean and nasty things about them." Regression analyses indicated that youth who report higher CV feel less connected to school, but their CV experiences do not appear to be related their perceived school safety when also considering traditional forms of victimization. Conclusions CV experiences are higher for HS girls for the majority of different types of CV acts compared to MS youth but similar to HS boys, and experiencing these acts is associated with less school connectedness.