Abstract
A growing body of research documents that bullying victimization is associated with delinquent behavior. There is an increasing need to better illuminate the factors that might moderate this relationship. This study examined whether the motivation to move out of low-resourced neighborhoods and sexual orientation/gender identity moderated the relationship between bullying victimization and delinquent behavior among a sample of 450 heterosexual and 91 non-heterosexual/cisgender African American youths. Measures considered were bullying victimization, delinquent behavior, sexual orientation/gender identity, motivation to move out, and family demographics. Sexual orientation/gender identity was not associated with youth delinquent behavior after controlling for covariates. Being motivated to move out moderated the association between bullying victimization and delinquent behavior. Sexual orientation/gender identity and being motivated to move out of low-resourced communities jointly contributed to the moderating effect between bullying victimization and delinquent behavior. For non-heterosexual/cisgender youth, bullying victimization is correlated with increased delinquent behavior for those with low motivation to move out of their communities compared with those with an average or higher level of motivation to stay. However, such a moderating effect was not shown for heterosexual youth.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 12998 |
Journal | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 24 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Dec 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: This study was funded by the Center for Health Administration Studies and the STI/HIV Intervention Network at the University of Chicago, which were awarded to Dexter R. Voisin.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- African American youth
- Bullying victimization
- Delinquent behavior
- Gender identity
- Hopefulness
- Sexual orientation