No abstract

Continuity and change in children's involvement in bullying was examined across the transition to middle school in relation to externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in fifth grade and peer affiliations in fifth and sixth grades. The sample consisted of 533 students (223 boys, 310 girls) with 72% European American, 25% African American, and 3% Other. Although externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in fifth grade were related to bullying involvement in sixth grade, the prediction of stability and desistance in bullying and victimization status was enhanced by information about students' peer group trajectories. Furthermore, peer group trajectories uniquely explained the emergence of bullying and victimization in middle school.

The Child Altruism Inventory (CAI) consisted of 24 yes‐or‐no items which measured the altruistic orientation of children. The sample included 1095 Grades 2 to 6 Chinese children in Hong Kong, The test‐retest and internal consistency reliabilities of the CAI were in the 0.70s. The correlations of the CAI score with the intelligence and self‐esteem scores were significantly positive, while the correlations of the CAI score with the psychoticism and neuroticism scores were significantly negative. Children in classes of positive and negative social environment rated high and low on the CAI respectively. The relations of the CAI score with self‐report prosocial and delinquent behavioural indices were also positive and negative respectively. The psychometric properties of the CAI are regarded as quite good.

The heterogeneity of peer rejection was examined as a function of social prominence in fifth grade classrooms. From an overall sample of 3,891 (1,931 girls) students, 721 youth (424 boys) were identified with rejected status. Social prominence was determined from the aggregation of peer nominations for leader, athletic, eool, and popular. Students with rejected sociometric status were classified into one of three prominence subtypes: high, medium, and low. Prominence subtypes were differentially linked to social behavior and peer affiliations. Although relatively few rejected students had high prominence, those who did tended to have higher levels of peer-assessed aggression, were more likely to be identified as bullies, had lower levels of internalizing behavior, and were less likely to be socially isolated and more likely to associate with socially prominent peers as compared to youth in other rejected status social prominence subtypes.

This study examined the social preference nominations (i.e., "liked most" and "liked least") in relation to peer group and classroom social dynamics in a sample of 622 fifth graders from 11 schools in a southeastern state. Liked most and liked least nominations were given to a small concentration of students within classrooms. The top five nominees for liked most and liked least tended to be in peer groups and associated with at least one classmate who shared their position as a top nominee. The majority of liked most nominations in a classroom were made toward members inside the nominator's group, whereas the majority of liked least nominations were made toward peers outside one's group. Students in the same peer group were more likely to nominate the same peers as liked most than were students who did not affiliate together. In contrast, the concordance for liked least nominations was moderate at both the peer-group and classroom level. Implications for school-based social interventions are discussed. C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.