Routine Activity, Target Congruence and Teacher Victimization: A Multilevel Analysis

• In Event: Theoretical Investigations into Bullying and Delinquency

Abstract

Teachers at school are typically considered as guardians of students and managers of classrooms. Thus, our attention rarely focuses on teachers as victims at school, though a great deal of work addresses students’ victimization. This current study fills this gap in the literature on school violence by examining the individual-and school- level predictors of teachers’ victimization at school. Our examination of teacher victimization is framed using a multilevel opportunity theoretical approach, incorporating measures of routine activities and target congruence at multiple levels of analysis. More specifically, we examine how teacher’s victimization is related to involvement in school activities, individual attributes that suggest target vulnerability and target antagonism, ecological vulnerability (i.e., school-level delinquent subculture), and the capability of teachers as guardians (both individually- and collectively-speaking). These various risk and protective factors will be examined using hierarchical negative binomial regression models with data from nearly 4,500 teachers and 101 schools in Kentucky.

Authors

• SooHyun O, University of Cincinnati

• Pamela Wilcox, University of Cincinnati