Bullying of Students by Race and Gender Interested in Mathematics

Populations that may be susceptible to being bullied include minoritized and female students who have an interest in mathematics classes or fields of study. We used the 2011 and 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study to investigate this potential vulnerability (TIMSS 2011; TIMSS 2019). The analyses included 10,350 participants in 2011 and 6966 in 2019. The 2011 cohort results show that, after controlling for math performance, enjoyment, and confidence, female students’ and, separately, Hispanic students’ reports of bullying victimization were significantly higher than the reports made by male, White, and multi-racial students. Female students, but not males, reported a statistically significant positive correlation between math assessment scores and rate of bullying victimization. However, the bullying findings from the 2019 cohort differ somewhat from those of the 2011 cohort. The 2019 cohort results reveal that, after controlling for math performance, enjoyment, and confidence, as well as nesting factors such as school size and population, females continue to report higher levels of bullying than males. However, Hispanic and Asian students report less bullying compared to other racial categories. Additionally, these findings accounted for about 3% of the variance and had minimal effect sizes. This suggests that other variables may be influencing the underrepresentation of minoritized and female students in mathematics classes and employment settings.