Peer-victimisation in multi-cultural contexts: A structural model of the effects on self-esteem and emotions

AbstractThis study examined a structural model which integrated personal and cultural victimisation in order to identify the effects of victimisation on emotions and personal and cultural self-esteem. A sample of 1,185 adolescents from 13 secondary schools in England (n = 322) and Spain (n = 863) was recruited. Participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) conducted regarding the initial model and then Strucutural Equations Modelling (SEM). Cultural victimisation had an indirect negative effect on cultural self-esteem and in consequence on emotional state, mediated by personal victimisation and the negative impact it produced on personal self-esteem. Only for the cultural majority did the percentage of their presence constitute a mediator variable between being a victim of cultural victimisation and the effect on cultural self-esteem. The results are discussed in relation to the extant literature and the implications for the intervention/prevention work to deal with victimisation and discrimination in multi-cultural schools