Virginia Study: Increased School Bullying In Areas That Voted For Trump

2016 Virginia presidential vote by county.

A new survey of Virginia school students that correlates bulling with areas that voted for Donald Trump has yielded results that, personally, I do not find surprising whatsoever: Bullying is higher in areas of Virginia that voted for Trump in contrast to areas that voted for Hillary Clinton.  The results parallel the findings of past studies cited on this blog hat found that children raised in "conservative Christian" homes showed lee empathy toward others and were more inclined towards bullying of others. Given that evangelical "Christians" are Trump's strongest support group, it should be little surprise, therefore, that bully levels are higher in pro-Trump areas.   A piece at NPR looks at the study findings.  Here are excerpts:

After the 2016 presidential election, teachers across the country reported they were seeing increased name-calling and bullying in their classrooms. Now, research shows that those stories — at least in one state — are confirmed by student surveys.

Francis Huang of the University of Missouri and Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia used data from a school climate survey taken by over 150,000 students across Virginia. They looked at student responses to questions about bullying and teasing from 2015 and 2017. Their findings were published Wednesday in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

In the 2017 responses, Huang and Cornell found higher rates of bullying and certain types of teasing in areas where voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Seventh- and eighth-graders in areas that favored Trump reported bullying rates in spring 2017 that were 18 percent higher than students living in areas that went for Clinton. They were also 9 percent more likely to report that kids at their schools were teased because of their race or ethnicity.

In the 2015 data, there were "no meaningful differences" in those findings across communities, the researchers wrote.

While bullying rates in areas of Virginia that voted Republican went up in 2017, rates went down in places that favored Clinton.

Their findings could lend credence to the anecdotal reports from teachers around the country after the election, says Dorothy Espelage, a psychology professor at the University of Florida who researches bullying and school safety in middle and high schools.

"Anybody that's in the schools is picking up on this," she says. "You don't have to be a psychologist or a sociologist to understand that if these conversations are happening on the TV and at the dinner table that these kids will take this perspective and they're going to play out in the schools."

"Parents should be mindful of how their reactions to the presidential election, or the reactions of others, could influence their children," Cornell, a psychologist and professor of education at UVA, said in a statement. "And politicians should be mindful of the potential impact of their campaign rhetoric and behavior on their supporters and indirectly on youth."

Regardless of where and how it happens, adds Francis Huang, "bullying is something that can still be addressed and brought down in schools."

Again, to me the findings are not surprising.  Trump's base represents some of the foulest, most racist and most cruel elements of America's population. While they parade around sanctimoniously pretending they are pious - at least while not carrying their AK-47's - they simply are not nice people.  Indeed, the biblical Pharisees look like nice and amazing people compared to Trump supporters and evangelical Christians.

In terms of Virginia itself, the red areas on the map above should be avoided if one values progressive values and decent treatment of others.