Abstract
Although teachers are often called upon to reduce children’s bullying and aggression, little is known regarding teachers’ responses to students’ harassment of peers or the beliefs which may inform their response strategies. To address this limitation, data were collected from 170 6th- and 7th-grade teachers (33 men; 137 women) and 2,938 (1,413 girls; 1,525 boys) of their students. Teachers beliefs regarding peer victimization were predictive of their efforts to advice victims how to cope with peer harassment. In particular, teachers who held more normative views of peer victimization were less likely to report reprimanding aggressive students and were more likely to utilize passive response strategies. Specific links emerged between teachers’ beliefs and strategies and classroom-levels of aggression and peer victimization in the fall and in the spring, as well as changes in students’ aggressive behavior and victimization over the course of the school year. Implications for intervention are discussed.
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Acknowledgments
Portions of this study were conducted as part of the Pathways Project, a larger longitudinal investigation of children’s social/psychological/scholastic adjustment in school contexts that is supported by the National Institutes of Health (1 RO1MH-49223, 2-RO1MH-49223, R01HD-045906 to Gary W. Ladd). Special appreciation is expressed to all the children and parents who made this study possible, and to members of the Pathways Project for assistance with data collection.
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Troop-Gordon, W., Ladd, G.W. Teachers’ Victimization-Related Beliefs and Strategies: Associations with Students’ Aggressive Behavior and Peer Victimization. J Abnorm Child Psychol 43, 45–60 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9840-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9840-y