Reciprocal Victimization? Students’ Victimization of Teachers Predicting Staff Victimization of Students By Affecting Mental Health

• In Event: The Perils of Educating: A National Sample of School Personnel Perceptions of School Violence

Abstract

Violence against educators in K-12 schools is a pervasive issue that is gaining attention from researchers and practitioners alike. An important, yet understudied, element of this issue is the reciprocal nature of student-directed and teacher-directed violence. That is, does violence against teachers from students relate to violence against students from staff? Past research has documented the co-morbidity of violence against staff and students in schools, yet few studies have examined the relations between staff and student violence, mediators, moderators, and reciprocal processes. Often, there are shared emotional and psychological processes in classrooms between teachers and students, and violence is no exception. A recent meta-analysis indicated that the prevalence of teacher-directed violence against students is as high as 88%, (Gusfre et al., 2023) and other researchers have found that rates of verbal and threatening aggression against educators from students can be as high as 80% (McMahon et al., 2024). Further, initial findings suggest classroom disciplinary problems and teachers’ mental health may be related to both student-directed and teacher-directed violence. Thus, additional research is needed to examine the potential reciprocal role of violence between students and teachers and the role of teacher mental health and classroom disciplinary problems.

The present study examined student victimization against pre-K-12th grade teachers (n = 8,370), and how this victimization relates to how often staff are viewed as victimizing students through humiliation, physical aggression, and discrimination. Educators’ feelings of anxiety/stress and depression were included as mediators and classroom disciplinary problems were included as a moderator. It was expected that the more students victimized teachers, the more anxious/stressed and depressed they would be, and the more likely they would be to report staff victimizing students. It was expected that greater classroom disciplinary problems would exacerbate these issues. Participants completed self-report surveys for all variables. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the findings of this study indicate that the more students victimized teachers, the more anxious/stressed and depressed the teachers felt. In turn, the more depressed teachers felt and the more violence from students they experienced, the more likely they were to indicate that staff at their school victimized students. Classroom disciplinary problems moderated all relations such that the more disciplinary problems were reported, the stronger all relations were found to be.

This study highlights the importance of understanding the dynamic and cyclical processes with school violence. School stakeholders are encouraged to adopt effective ways to bolster positive school and classroom climates to prevent both teacher-directed violence from students and student-directed violence from staff. Implications for research, practice, and policy will be discussed.

Authors

• Andrew Holmes Perry, The Ohio State University

• Linda Reddy, Rutgers University

• Andrew Martinez, Center for Court Innovation