Session Information
05 SES 04 A, Teachers Addressing Disadvantage and Bullying
Paper Session
Contribution
Previous empirical research suggests that students with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) are more vulnerable than their peers to direct bullying involvement in schools, i.e., in the role of those bullying and those being bullied (Halabi et al., 2018; Kokkinos & Panayiotou, 2004). Furthermore, contemporary theories on the causes of bullying assume that bullying is not simply the result of flawed individual characteristics, but a group process that is impacted by everyone involved in a context where bullying behavior occurs, including seemingly uninvolved bystanders (Twemlow & Sacco, 2011). Teachers are believed to play a particularly important leadership role in shaping relationship dynamics between students (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). This view is supported by mounting empirical evidence that teachers are indeed able to shape relationship dynamics in classrooms (e.g., Hendrickx et al., 2016). School climate research adds the idea that the impact of teachers on bullying dynamics also needs to be understood as a group phenomenon, i.e., the entire school relationship climate impacts the prevalence of bullying behavior and involvement above and beyond individual teachers’ influence (Wang, Berry, & Swearer, 2013).
However, no study to date has tested whether teachers’ emotional support as well as a positive teacher-student relationship climate in school might serve as protective factors against EBD students’ direct bullying involvement. Hence, this study’s main objective is to better understand how teachers might be able to play a more effective role in preventing internalizing students being pushed into the victimized role in bullying dynamics and externalizing students taking on the role of those bullying (Farmer et al., 2015). Consequently, the main research question is: What role play the teacher-student school relationship climate and individual classroom teachers’ emotional support in the relationship between students’ internalizing and/or externalizing EBD and their self-perceived direct involvement in bullying dynamics as those victimized or bullying?
Method
Participants Student survey data were collected from 452 students in 39 grade seven to nine classrooms at nine secondary schools in a large German city in the fall of 2019. Schools were private or public and included different German school forms at the secondary level (i.e. Gymnasien, which are higher-track academic schools in preparation for university studies, and lower-tack integrated secondary schools). The participating classrooms were selected by teachers who decided to participate in the study. The sample has a notably higher ratio of students with EBD (23 %) than the national average (17 %), as measured by the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire/ (SDQ , Klipker et al., 2018). Instruments Students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties were assessed with the German version of the self-report Strength & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for the age range 11 to 17 years (SDQinfo, 2016). Perceived direct bullying involvement was measured via students’ self-report of having assumed a bullying role (Cronbach’s α = .80 ) or the role of a victim (Cronbach’s α = .85) of bullying. Items were derived from the Tripod student survey (Tripod Education Partners, 2019) and adapted by the research team. The two variables’ internal structure and discriminant validity was confirmed via Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Students reported on their perception of the teacher-student school relationship climate via three items (example item: “Teachers in the hallways treat me with respect, even if they don’t know me”, Cronbach’s α = .82). Students’ reports on the perceived emotional support from their classroom teachers were measured via five items derived from the Tripod 7Cs of Effective Teaching, the Teacher-Student Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2019), and the Teacher-Student Relationship Instrument (Barch, 2015) (Cronbach’s α = .81). A CFA of both latent factors, Teacher-Student School Relationship Climate and Teacher-Emotional Support, supports their internal structure and discriminant validity. Analyses and missing data In order to test the hypothesized path model this study uses Mplus 8 to specify and compare structural regression models (Kline, 2015). [1] Please note that this study uses the student survey of the SDQ, the Klipker et al. (2018) nationally representative study the SDQ’s parental survey.
Expected Outcomes
The final model with the best model fit statistics are within Hu and Bentler’s (1999) recommended acceptable range: χ2 (94, N = 446) = 144.819, p = .0006), CFI = 0.947; RMSEA = 0.035; SRMR = 0.049. Results show direct paths from externalizing difficulties to both, a perceived bullying-role and a perceived bullying-victimized role. From internalizing difficulties there is only one direct path to the perceived bullying-victimized role. Individual effect sizes of these three paths are small, but significant (ranging from p < .01 to p < .001). These results are as expected. Regarding the hypothesized mediation effects, the model partially supports the hypothesized model. The relationship between students’ EBD and their perceived direct involvement in bullying is mediated by the teacher-student school relationship climate, but not by teachers’ individual emotional support. Specifically, the path from externalizing difficulties to students’ perceived bullying role is partially mediated by the perceived quality of the teacher-student school climate (Total indirect effect = .20 standard deviation, p < .01). This mediation effect accounts for almost half of the total effect from externalizing difficulties to a perceived bullying role (Total effect = .46 standard deviation, p < .001). In contrast, the relationship between externalizing EBD and either direct bullying involvement role is not mediated by the perceived individual emotional support of classroom teachers. In contrast, the path from internalizing difficulties to students’ perceived bullying-victimized role is not mediated by either school climate or teacher emotional support.
References
Barch, C. (2015). On measuring student-teaching relationships: sorting out predictors, outcomes, and schematic structure of students' internal relationship representations. University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. Retrieved from https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1950 Farmer, T. W., Irvin, M. J., Motoca, L. M., Leung, M.-C., Hutchins, B. C., Brooks, D. S., & Hall, C. M. (2015). Externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, peer affiliations, and bullying involvement across the transition to middle school. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 23(1), 3-16. doi:10.1177/1063426613491286 Halabi, F., Ghandour, L., Dib, R., Zeinoun, P., & Maalouf, F. T. (2018). Correlates of bullying and its relationship with psychiatric disorders in Lebanese adolescents. Psychiatry Research, 261, 94-101. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2017.12.039 Hendrickx, M. M. H. G., Mainhard, M. T., Boor-Klip, H. J., Cillessen, A. H. M., & Brekelmans, M. (2016). Social dynamics in the classroom: Teacher support and conflict and the peer ecology. Teaching and Teacher Education, 53, 30-40. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2015.10.004 Hu, L.-t., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indices in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1-55. doi:10.1080/10705519909540118 Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491-525. doi:10.3102/0034654308325693 Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling: Fourth edition. New York, NY: The Guileford Press. Klipker, K., Baumgarten, F., Göbel, K., Lampert, T., & Hölling, H. (2018). Psychische Auffälligkeiten bei Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland – Querschnittergebnisse aus KiGGS Welle 2 und Trends. Journal of Health Monitoring, 3(3), 37-45. doi:10.17886/RKI-GBE-2018-077 Kokkinos, C. M., & Panayiotou, G. (2004). redicting bullying and victimization among early adolescents: Associations with disruptive behavior disorders. Aggressive Behavior, 30(6), 520 - 533. doi:10.1002/ab.20055 Pianta, R. C. (2019). Student teacher relationship scale (STRS). Retrieved from https://curry.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/castl/measures-developed-robert-c-pianta-phd SDQinfo. (2016). Scoring the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire for age 4-17 or 18+. Retrieved from http://www.sdqinfo.com/py/sdqinfo/c0.py Tripod Education Partners. (2019). Survey assessments: Unlock the value of student, teacher, and family voice. Retrieved from https://www.tripoded.com/surveys/ Twemlow, S. W., & Sacco, F. C. (2011). Preventing bullying and school violence. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association Publishing. Wang, C., Berry, B., & Swearer, S. M. (2013). The critical role fo school climate in effective bullying prevention. Theory into Practice, 52(4), 296-302. doi:10.1080/00405841.2013.829735
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