Life's footprints: undergraduate students reflecting on their experiences with delinquency, bullying, & social support

The Life's Footprints study investigated the bullying and delinquency experiences of 11 undergraduate students at Humboldt State University (HSU) in Arcata California. Two specific time frames were used to investigate the participants' bullying and delinquent experiences. The first time frame dealt with the participants' previous experiences with bullying and delinquency during their time as an adolescent growing up in their hometowns1 and the second time frame dealt with their current experiences with bullying and delinquency as undergraduate students attending HSU.2 The first time frame was shown to be the most significant amongst the participants, and through analyzing the data most of their bullying and delinquent experiences occurred during childhood and/or adolescence. Further, this qualitative study used grounded theory as presented by Kathy Charmaz (2006). The Life's Footprints study provided an insight to each participants' personal experience with bullying and delinquency. Moreover, as participants were questioned about their experiences with bullying and delinquency, the participants indicated that they were either a victim, a perpetrator, or both a victim and a perpetrator of bullying. Social bonding, social identity, symbolic interactionism and social support, were three theoretical foundations that were used within this study, so as to address the key themes within the study. In addition, the participants' delinquency as juveniles was seen as a result of their peer social acceptance and attachment to their delinquent peers, via social bonding (Hirschi 1969).