Peers' and Teachers' Responses to Inter-Ethnic Bullying: Attitudes, Contact, and School Climate

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

By adopting a developmental intergroup perspective (Killen & Rutland, 2011), this international symposium features research investigating students’ and teachers’ beliefs, social cognition, and attitudes regarding inter-ethnic bullying. The research focuses on European schools, where this phenomenon is spreading (Elamè, 2013). The first paper examines how students’ beliefs about their contact with the ethnic outgroup and about school climate are associated with bullying the ethnic outgroup. Among students of the majority ethnic group, evaluating the contact with the ethnic outgroup more negatively was related with higher inter-ethnic bullying, but a more negative evaluation of the school climate was associated with higher inter-ethnic bullying only for the students reporting more frequent contact with the outgroup at school. The second paper examines direct and indirect (through prejudice), and moderated (by the closeness to the teacher) associations of students’ moral disengagement with inter-ethnic bullying. Perpetration of inter-ethnic bullying was higher for students reporting higher moral disengagement, but the strength of this association was reduced in case of a warm relationship with the teacher. The third study explores whether teachers’ attitudes toward refugees can be influential on teachers’ evaluations of inter-ethnic bullying targeting ethnic minority Arab students. Teachers were found to be aware of wrongfulness of inter-ethnic bullying, but teachers who had more negative attitudes towards refugees showed to under-estimate the negative outcomes for the Arab victim from inter-ethnic bullying. The discussant will consider the findings in light of the international concern to reduce bullying and promote positive peer relationships in childhood and adolescence.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Simona Carla Silvia Caravita, University of Stavanger (Norway)

Discussant

• Hildegunn Fandrem, University of Stavanger, Norway

Individual Presentations

• Inter-Ethnic Bullying: The Role of the Contact with the Ethnic Outgroup - Presenting Author: Simona Carla Silvia Caravita, University of Stavanger (Norway); Non-Presenting Author: Noemi Papotti, Catholic University of Sacred Heart Milan; Non-Presenting Author: Elisa Gutierrez Arvidsson, Linköpings universitet; Non-Presenting Author: Robert Thornberg, Linköping University; Non-Presenting Author: Giovanni Giulio Valtolina, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan & Brescia, Italy

• Inter-Ethnic bullying among children, moral cognition, and closeness with the teacher - Presenting Author: Nicolò Maria Iannello; Non-Presenting Author: Marina Camodeca, University of Udine; Non-Presenting Author: Carmen Gelati, University of Milano – Bicocca; Milan

• Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Refugees Predict Their Evaluations of Students’ Bullying of Ethnic Minority Arab Peers - Presenting Author: Lenka Kollerova, Institute of Psychology of the Czech Academy of Sciences; Non-Presenting Author: Petr Soukup, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Non-Presenting Author: Dagmar Strohmeier, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria; Non-Presenting Author: Simona Carla Silvia Caravita, University of Stavanger (Norway); Non-Presenting Author: Melanie A. Killen, University of Maryland - College Park