OUTSIDERS IN SCHOOLS - PREVALENCE OF VICT IMIZATION AND RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL-STATUS

Assessed sociometric status as well as self-and other-judgements of vi ctimization (bullying) of 5th, 7th, and 11th graders (N = 443) The per centage of children classified as ''rejected'' was 10.8%, 5.0% were id entified as victimized via peerjudgments, and 3.6% via self-assessment . Victimized individuals (self-and other-judgments) almost exclusively belonged to the status group of rejected; whereas only about half of the rejected individuals were victimized. This data pattern suggests t hat rejection constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for bullying. Further, each school class had at least one and at the most two individuals who were victimized, suggesting that outsiders carry important, underresearched functions in the (fixed) social group. On t he basis of self-and other-judgments, four sub-groups were created: (7 ) individuals identified as bullied via both data sources were called ''victimized'' while those (412) individuals for whom neither data sou rce indicated victimization were classified as ''non-victimized''. (14 ) Individuals who were identified as victimized on the basis of peer n ominations were categorized into the ''defensive'' group. The fourth g roup (9 individuals) indicated themselves to be victimized without acc ording peer nominations. This group was termed ''sensitive''. These fo ur subgroups differ with respect to important psychological variables. For instance, those individuals who were identified as victimized by both data sources experience the highest degree of rejection.