The Relationship of School Characteristics and Bullying Between Career Academy and Comprehensive High School Students

Abstract

Violence—including issues of bullying—in urban schools across the United States is a persistent phenomenon, and continues to be of utmost concern for school administrators, community leaders, students, and their families. Using propensity score matching, we examined the relationship between school type—a magnet career academy and a traditional, comprehensive school—and students’ experiences with bullying—observing and being a victim. We found that academy students—compared to comprehensive school students—both experienced and observed significantly lower levels of bullying. We believe it is likely that students at the magnet career academy benefited from a combination of factors, including their abilities to choose to participate in the academy, having peers with similar career interests, and the small size of the academy.