Profiles of children’s social behaviors and peer victimization in early elementary school: Sex differences and stability over time.

Research suggests that younger children engage in fewer peer victimization roles compared to their older peers (e.g., aggressor, victim, defender). Still, the development of these roles throughout early elementary school remains unclear. Additionally, aggression and social behaviors evolve differently in boys and girls, yet sex differences in these roles are not well understood. This study examined children's profiles of involvement in physical and relational aggression, prosocial behaviors, and peer victimization in kindergarten and first and second grades by using latent profile analyses and testing profile similarity across sex and school years. Then, it examined the stability of profile membership from kindergarten to second grade before testing how early socioeconomic status predicted profile membership. The sample included 1,757 children of various sociodemographic backgrounds, mostly White, from a longitudinal birth study in Canada. Boys' profiles aligned with a four-role typology that remained consistent from kindergarten to second grade: prosocial, normative, moderately aggressive-victimized (AV), and highly AV profiles. In kindergarten, girls' typology also included four profiles: prosocial, normative, relationally aggressive, and AV. By first grade, a fifth profile emerged: victimized girls. Profile membership for both boys and girls was generally very stable over time, and low socioeconomic status predicted higher odds of belonging to any AV profiles compared to prosocial ones. These findings underscore both developmental similarities and distinctions in boys' and girls' social behaviors and experiences in early elementary school and the precocity of stable membership in at-risk profiles. They highlight socioeconomic status as an early risk factor that could inform prevention research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).