Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 00(0), 2014 C  2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pits DOI: 10.1002/pits.21770 CLASSROOM VICTIMIZATION: CONSEQUENCES FOR SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MEG M. REULAND University of Virginia AMORI YEE MIKAMI University of British Columbia Peer victimization is a well-established risk factor for children’s adjustment, but it has rarely been studied as a feature of classroom climate. This study examines the consequences of classroom victimization for children’s social and academic adjustment. Classroom victimization, social func- tioning, and academic adjustment were assessed in two subsamples taken from a full sample of 523 children nested in 28 classrooms, followed over the course of a school year. Results from a subsample of 213 students suggested that higher classroom levels of victimization predicted atten- uated growth in children’s reading achievement as well as greater stability of reading achievement over the course of the year. Results from a subsample of 490 children suggested that lower levels of classroom victimization predicted reduced stability of peer social preference and mitigated the trajectory between children’s externalizing behavior and poor social preference. Implications for prevention of and interventions targeting peer victimization are discussed. C  2014 Wiley Periodi- cals, Inc. Peer victimization, defined as intentional aggression among peers that arises from power differentials (e.g., Olweus, 1993), is a nearly universal phenomenon with robust links to poor developmental outcomes (e.g., Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). A social ecological framework—which views victimization within a nested hierarchy of contexts that may each exert influence—has emerged as the leading paradigm for understanding this pressing problem. The school has increasingly been viewed as a critical site in the social–ecological framework, whereby individual students, classroom teachers, and school administrators may reciprocally influence one another to affect a climate of victimization (see Figure 1; Swearer & Espelage, 2004). Despite the importance of a social ecological framework for understanding victimization, no studies, to our knowledge, have considered the impacts of classroom levels of peer victimization on children’s adjustment. Rather, studies of victimization tend to be nonspecific with regard to location. When location is considered, the literature tends to highlight unsupervised places, which are indeed where victimization is highly likely to occur (e.g., Astor, Meyer, & Behre, 1999). Yet other studies (e.g., Baldry & Farrington, 1999) suggest that victimization that occurs in the classroom is just as prevalent. This dearth of research is concerning, given that classrooms are a consequential site where academic achievement is shaped, as well as where children develop social competencies (e.g., Pianta, 2006). Moreover, peer victimization occurs most often among peers who met in their classroom (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, Osterman, & Kaukiainen, 1996). For these reasons, the current study focuses on the classroom level of the school social ecology, where victimization may both originate and have accentuated importance for children’s social and academic adjustment. Existing research also tends to investigate the impact of victimization on individual victims. A social ecological model, by contrast, posits that classroom victimization could affect the adjustment of all the students in the classroom community, whether directly involved in the victimization or not. For instance, positive and negative interpersonal processes between teachers and individual students can create a climate that influences the academic and social-emotional development of all Correspondence to: Meg M. Reuland, 102 Gilmer Hall, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904–4400. E-mail: mr5mb@virginia.edu 1