Part of the Problem and Part of the Solution: Th e Role of Peers in Bullying, Dominance, and Victimization during the Transition from Primary School to Secondary School

Aggression and bullying in school have become widely recognized as important empirical and policy issues in recent decades and have been studied at a variety of ages, from kindergarten through high school (Boldizar, Perry, & Perry, 1989; Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996; Ladd, Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1997; Olweus, 1993a, 1993b; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999; Pellegrini & Long, 2002). Bullying is characterized by youths purposefully “victimizing” their peers via physical, verbal, or indirect aggression (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Espelage, Bosworth, & Simon, 2000; Smith & Sharp, 1994). Bullying is also typifi ed by a power diff erential where aggressors are more powerful than their targets (Olweus, 1993a, 1993b).