Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Children and Youth Services Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth A path analysis on school bullying and critical school environment variables: A social capital perspective JoLynn V. Carney a , Yanhong Liu b, ⁎ , Richard J. Hazler c a Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education, The Pennsylvania State University, United States b Department of Counseling and Human Services, Syracuse University, United States c Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education, The Pennsylvania State University, United States ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Bullying perpetrating Victimization Bystanding School support Acceptance School connectedness ABSTRACT School bullying has gained intensive attention from school personnel and researchers, but still, little is known about the effects of bullying perpetrating, victimization, and bystanding on critical school environment vari- ables. Guided by the social capital theory and empirical findings, the study addressed the complexity of relations among bullying perpetrating, victimization, bystanding and students’ perceived school support, acceptance of diversity at school, and perceived school connectedness. Participants in the study were 973 students in grades 3- 6 from two public school districts located in the northeastern United States. The final path model supported the hypotheses that, a) bulling perpetrating has direct as well as indirect, negative effects on perceived school support, acceptance of diversity, and school connectedness; and b) bystanding has an direct effect on students’ perceived acceptance of diversity at school and indirectly affects school connectedness. Results of the study aligned with the social capital perspective on positive human relations and social outcomes. Findings from this study reinforced the need of anti-bullying initiatives at the individual, group, and school-wide levels. They further underscored the importance of enhancing school support and acceptance of diversity at school. 1. Introduction School bullying is a form of interpersonal violence that is a barrier to learning and can lead to short- and long-term consequences (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016) impacting everyone involved including youth who bully, youth who are targets of bullying, and bystanders who witness the abuse of others (Hong & Espelage, 2012). It is important to acknowledge that participant roles are not stagnant and instead can fluctuate depending on context and circumstances (Gumpel, Zioni-Koren, & Bekerman, 2014; Ryoo, Wang, & Swearer, 2015). The dynamic process of bullying yields differing outcomes related to individual dispositional factors and organizational structures. A student who may be a target at one point in time can, in another context, become the perpetrator. Bullying is typically defined by researchers and other entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and United States Department of Education (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014, p. 7) as “any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or per- ceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated.” School bullying is recognized as a global issue that has captured the worldwide attention of policymakers and educators (Rodkin, Espelage, & Hanish, 2015) due to occurrence across all grade levels (Hong & Espelage, 2012), with middle school stage identified as the peak fol- lowed by a significant decrease at the high school level (Espelage & Horne, 2008). Cross-national studies have been conducted to compare ratios of bullying that occurs in different countries. One relatively re- cent cross-national study reported bullying ranged from approximately 9–45% for boys and 5–36% for girls (Craig et al., 2009). The latest United States statistics from 2013 indicated that 22% of students re- ported being bullied at school during the academic year, which is a 6% decrease since 2011 and the lowest since 2005 when this type of data were first collected based on the 2015 School Crime Supplement to National Crime Victimization Survey. Bullying behaviors appear to start early, with researchers suggesting preschool as students enter a formal education context (Vlachou, Andreou, Botsoglou, & Didaskalou, 2011), while others propose 2nd grade where a majority of perpetrators con- ducted at least one other aggressive act later during grades 3–5(Glew, Fan, Katon, Rivara, & Kernic, 2005). School bullying is linked to direct impact on victims including short- and long-term psychological distress (Rueger & Jenkins, 2014) such as https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.07.029 Received 28 March 2018; Received in revised form 24 July 2018; Accepted 25 July 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author at: 130 College Place Suite 440, Syracuse, NY 13244, United States. E-mail address: yliu363@syr.edu (Y. Liu). Children and Youth Services Review 93 (2018) 231–239 Available online 26 July 2018 0190-7409/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T