Bully perpetration and sexual harassment perpetration among middle school students: The impact of family-level factors

The aim of the present study was to examine to what extent family-level factors (i.e., family social support, parental supervision, family conflict and hostility, and sibling aggression perpetration) contributed to bully perpetration and sexual harassment perpetration, after controlling for known individual-level characteristics. Participants were 653 students from three middle schools (grade 5, 5.5%; grade 6, 30.8%; grade 7, 27.9%; and grade 8, 35.8%) in Illinois. Results indicated greater parental supervision was associated with less bully perpetration and greater sibling aggression perpetration was associated with more bully and sexual harassment perpetration. Despite bully perpetration predicting co-occurring sexual harassment perpetration, family-level variables did not moderate the relation between bully perpetration and sexual harassment perpetration. Study results suggest that the family environment influences the perpetration of aggressive acts among middle school students. It implies that research that has not included family-level factors might have overestimated the effects of individual characteristics on bullying