An increasing number of immigrant students attend Italian schools, with the possibility of being involved in bullying episodes. A few studies have investigated this phenomenon, providing some evidence that immigrant students may face an increased risk to being bullied compared to native students. The present study adopted a mixed-method design, which may better catch the dynamics of bullying towards immigrant peers. Six-hundred and twenty-nine native and immigrant students (20.5 % with immigrant background; 54.8% girls) filled in self-report measures about their bullying experiences, popularity, acceptance of diversity at school and prejudice. Thirty-five pupils (54% with immigrant background) were also interviewed. Two hypothetical bullying scenarios were presented, one depicting a native victim and one depicting an immigrant victim. After each scenario, adolescents were encouraged to reason about the motives for bullying. Quantitative data showed that general bullying was associated with perceived popularity status among peers, while racial bullying was associated with prejudice but not peer status. The relevance of anti-immigrant prejudices in driving bullying emerged also from adolescents' interview. The qualitative data indicated that among the reasons for bullying, adolescents mentioned a desire for dominance and popularity, in particular when the victim was non-immigrant. Findings suggest that, in addition to individual and peer group-related risk factors, prejudice also needs to be addressed in anti-bullying interventions aimed to counteract racial bullying.

This study investigated students' perspectives about bullying towards same-country and immigrant peers. Thirty-five Italian and immigrant students (age range: 11-15) took part to the study.Participants were probed with two bullying scenarios, depicting respectively a new classmate from another Italian city and from a foreign country. A Grounded Theory approach was adopted to examine participants' perspectives about the motives for bullying. Findings showed that a process of socializing deviance is at the core of both forms of bullying. This social process refers to a series of shared beliefs within the peer group about the victim's deviant features. Three sub-categories related to both forms of bullying emerged from the core concept: (a) Rejecting the newcomer deviance, (b) Rejecting physical deviance, (c) and Rejecting personality deviance. These sub-categories were related to the subcategories of bullying towards immigrant peers: (d) Rejecting cultural deviance, (e) and Learned racism. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical relevance.

Two experimental studies investigated whether the exposure to cyberbullying situations produces in bullied youth, and in young people in general, higher levels of stress, negative emotions, and attention levels, in comparison to other peer interactions, including bullying. In both studies, participants' physiological activation (Study 1 and 2) and behavioral data (Study 2) were recorded while watching four 1-minute videos representing cyberbullying, face-to-face bullying, prosocial, and neutral interactions. Self-report questionnaires assessed participants' emotional responses to the videos, and victimization. Sixty-one adolescents (65.7% girls) participated in Study 1; 35 young adults (60% girls) participated in Study 2. Results indicate that cyberbullying causes higher stress and negative emotions than prosocial and neutral peer interactions, but not than bullying. Cyberbullying also elicited higher levels of stress and negative emotions in victims than non-victims, but only for adolescents.