Ethnic Bullying Victimization in Italy: The Role of Acculturation Orientation for Ethnic Minority Adolescents With Differing Citizenship Statuses

Abstract

This study examines the role of acculturation orientation toward home and host countries in ethnic bullying victimization, by considering citizenship status and taking into account social withdrawal. Within a larger school project with middle and high school students, we analyzed data on 252 adolescents from immigrant backgrounds: 71 born abroad without Italian citizenship (Males = 71.4%; mean age = 13.98, SD = 1.7); 96 born in Italy to immigrant parents and without Italian citizenship (Males = 58.3%; mean age = 13.26, SD = 1.6); and 85 Italian citizens born in Italy with an immigrant parent (Males = 54.7%; mean age = 13.12, SD = 1.5). At the univariate level we found that the group of adolescents born abroad with foreign parents showed significantly higher levels of ethnic victimization compared to the group of adolescents born in Italy with an Italian parent. The latter also reported a significantly higher mean in Acculturation Orientation toward their Host Country (i.e., Italy) compared to the other two groups. Looking at the processes working within each group, we found differences in the patterns of association between acculturation orientation and ethnic bullying victimization. Specifically, we found a significant and positive association between acculturation orientation toward the home country and ethnic victimization in the two groups of adolescents born in Italy, while acculturation orientation toward the host country seems to be a protective factor only for adolescents with Italian citizenship. Acculturation orientation does not play any role in ethnic victimization for the first generation of immigrants, while for this group we found a stronger positive effect of Social Withdrawal. Citizenship status appears to be a good indicator of belonging to an ethnic minority group with a background of immigration: it seems to catch specific processes in ethnic bullying victimization.

Bullying and Victimization in Native and Immigrant Very-Low-Income Adolescents in Italy: Disentangling the Roles of Peer Acceptance and Friendship

“…These negative beliefs may favor immigrants' victimization from their peers, and may also lead school personal to undervalue bullying incidents involving these students (Hong et al, 2014;Peguero, 2012). Regarding the Italian context, there is growing evidence that immigrants are more frequently victimized than natives in all grades of schools (Alivernini et al, 2019d;Palladino et al, 2020;Pistella, Zava et al, 2020), and that peer racial prejudice is specifically associated with the victimization of immigrant students in Italian schools (Caravita et al, 2020).…”

“…Within the specific group of very-low-income students, the peer context could play a different role for very-low-income immigrants. The discrimination suffered by immigrant students (Caravita et al, 2020;Palladino et al, 2020;Plenty & Jonsson, 2017) may explain the specific protective or detrimental effects of peers on their school adjustment. Some studies have shown that the victimization of immigrant students is predicted by peer rejection (Strohmeier et al, 2011) and prevented by peer support (Walsh et al, 2016), but also that immigrants are more likely to behave as bullies as a reaction to perceived rejection, and as a means for obtaining affiliation to the peer group (Fandrem et al, 2009;Strohmeier et al, 2012), whereas conversely natives engage in bullying predominantly to affirm their social dominance within the group (Reijntjes et al, 2016).…”

“…The second aim of the present study is more explorative in nature. Since the studies on ethnic bullying have suggested the existence of specific patterns of victimization for immigrants (Palladino et al, 2020), we want to explore the possible differences in the hypothesized model between natives and immigrants. Thus, we aim to verify the following research hypotheses:…”

“…Considering the steadily increasing number of very-low-income immigrant minors in Italian schools (Foundation for Initiatives and Studies on Multi-Ethnicity, ISMU, 2020; Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, MIUR, 2019), it becomes important to understand the dynamics of bullying and victimization in this highly vulnerable group. Italy has indeed a very recent history of mass immigration, and Italian schools are often unprepared to sustain the social and cultural integration of foreign students (Milione, 2011), who frequently suffer victimization and social isolation by their native peers (Palladino et al, 2020;Pistella, Zava et al, 2020) and have higher levels of psychological distress (Alivernini et al, 2019c;Cozzolino et al, 2020).…”

“…Recent studies have revealed that immigrants are more subject to mixed attitudes than their native classmates (Alivernini et al, 2019b;Cavicchiolo et al, 2019) and that they may be subjected to discrimination and school violence specifically due to their immigrant background (Caravita et al, 2020;Maynard et al, 2016;Palladino et al, 2020). Moreover, immigrant students are more frequently victimized for their low socioeconomic status (Hong et al, 2014).…”