Political Ness

 

The study — conducted by Francis Huang, an associate professor of statistics, measurement, and evaluation in education at the University of Missouri, and Dewey Cornell, a professor of education at the University of Virginia — used school climate survey data collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Researchers used a standard definition of bullying to ask students if they personally had been bullied at school, but also asked more general questions about bullying and teasing they had observed happening to others in their school.

Survey results were then mapped onto presidential election results for each school district’s locality. The study controlled for several locality-wide variables, including prior bullying and teasing rates, socioeconomic status, population density, and the percentage of white student enrollment.

Huang and Cornell found that a 10 percentage point increase in voters supporting the Republican candidate in 2016 was associated with a 5 percent jump in middle school teasing because of race or ethnicity and an 8-percent increase in middle school bullying.

Voter preference for Trump linked to bullying in middle schools — ScienceDaily

 

“Survey results were then mapped onto presidential election results for each school district’s locality.” –  BUT, you can’t make any kind of “presidential election results” comparisons because there was no survey in any prior presidential elections!  You have no idea how things played out after the 2012 or 2008 or 2004 elections, so you can’t say that it was the election of a Republican that had anything to do with the reports of bullying.  For all you know, there were higher incidents of bullying after other elections, also.  I cry foul.

You claim there’s a jump in bullying, BUT you don’t actually say who’s being bullied OR who’s doing the bullying.  (It could even be teachers.)  My guess, if social media is any indication, that it’s the children who are inclined to be more Republican-centered than Democrat-centered who are actually being bullied here.  I suspect it’s your “Voter preference for Trump” kids who are BEING bullied, not doing the bullying, as you imply.  Again, I cry foul on this “study.”  [Like this story, for example: Bullying Jerks Drive Kid To Breaking Point Because His Name is Trump]

Last but not least, middle school kids can’t vote!   So it’s really a stretch to try to link “voter preference” to middle-schoolers.