title: Friendships with peers who are low or high in aggression as moderators of the link between peer victimization and declines in academic functioning.
abstract: This paper reports two prospective investigations of the role of friendship in the relation between peer victimization and grade point averages (GPA). Study 1 included 199 children (105 boys, 94 girls; mean age of 9.1 years) and Study 2 included 310 children (151 boys, 159 girls; mean age of 8.5 years). These children were followed for two school years. In both projects, we assessed aggression, victimization, and friendship with a peer nomination inventory, and we obtained children's GPAs from a review of school records. Peer victimization was associated with academic declines only when children had either a high number of friends who were above the classroom mean on aggression or a low number of friends who were below the classroom mean on aggression. These results highlight the importance of aggression levels among friends for the academic adjustment of victimized children.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. davschw@usc.edu
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: Andrea Hopmeyer
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Gorman
authors.forename: Kenneth A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dodge
authors.forename: Gregory S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Pettit
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Bates
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology*; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012951:Socialization; D012963:Sociometric Techniques