What Do Teachers Need to Better Prevent and Reduce Bullying? A Qualitative Study

• In Event: 3-247 - The Social Peer Ecology in Classrooms: The Role of Students, Teachers and School-Based Interventions

Integrative Statement

Despite recent advances in the study of teachers’ role regarding the prevention and reduction of bullying, it is not clear which concrete steps teachers can take to minimize peer aggression and foster the well-being of victimized students. Previous studies also showed that teachers are not always able to identify peer victimization at an early stage or intervene appropriately when bullying occurs. As professional development programs and school-based anti-bullying programs can support teachers in their strategies to reduce bullying, it is important to know which types of bullying situations teachers themselves find difficult to handle. This knowledge may help us understand how anti-bullying programs and professional development programs can be improved to effectively support teachers.

In this explorative study we first examined how teachers defined bullying behavior, whether teachers have experienced difficult bullying situations in the past year and if so, how teachers characterize these situations. Second, we examined how teachers responded to these difficult events and which difficulties they may have experienced in doing so. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 Dutch elementary school teachers (M teaching experience = 13,8 year, grades 2-6, 74% female). These interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded according to three stages (e.g., open, axial and selective coding) as defined by Baarda, de Goede, and Teunissen (2009).

Based on the qualitative analyses, the following three difficult bullying situations can be distinguished: 1) identifying covert forms of peer victimization; 2) estimating the seriousness of a reported incident; and 3) handling persistent aggressive behavior. As most teachers believed that they could not influence the situation to better identify peer victimization, they often used preventive classroom interventions to prevent bullying in the future. In order to estimate the seriousness of an incident, some teachers talked with victims, bullies, or both. However, teachers reported that these talks often yielded mixed responses, making it difficult for them to intervene adequately. Finally, even though teachers used multiple curative and preventive strategies, specific students continued to exhibit aggressive behavior. A notable finding was that teachers differed widely in their intervention strategies for handling persistent aggressive behavior.

These results suggest that even though teachers use a wide range of intervention skills to handle bullying behavior in their classrooms, they also experience a certain inability to handle adequately in specific bullying situations. By including specific tools for teachers, such as sensitive screening instruments and concrete protocols, school-based anti-bullying programs could further support teachers in their role to prevent and reduce bullying. Future research is needed to examine how teachers’ concrete strategies in specific situations affect the level of peer victimization in the classroom. Also, the moderating role of teachers in the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs should be further examined.

Authors

• Marloes Denise Alexandra van Verseveld, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
  Presenting Author

• Minne Fekkes, TNO Child Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ruben G. Fukkink, University of Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ron J. Oostdam, University of Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author