School Connectedness and Bystander Intervention: The Moderating Role of Perceived Exclusion and Privilege Among African American Students

AbstractAs researchers and practitioners begin to take a bystander approach toward preventing bullying, which involves a power imbalance between two students, it is important to acknowledge that predictors of bystander intervention may look different in various groups of students. Though school connectedness has been suggested as a predictor, previous literature fails to examine how this relationship may look in students who are racially socialized to be aware of overall inequities in schools, such as African American students. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of perceived exclusion/privilege in the school on the relationship between school connectedness and willingness to intervene in four acts of aggression (i.e., social exclusion, relational, cyber, and physical) among 183 African American sixth- and ninth-graders (51% female). Findings indicate that perceived exclusion/privilege in the school can decrease students’ willingness to intervene in acts of aggression despite feeling connected to the school.Impact StatementThis article will further the conversation of bystander behavior in bullying situations by considering a key contextual factor of a marginalized group of students.