The role of Teachers in how U.S. Youth Evaluate and Respond to Immigrant Biased-Based Bullying

• In Event: Facilitators or Gatekeepers: The Roles of Parents and Teachers in Children’s and Adolescents’ Intergroup Interactions

Abstract

Positive school climate and teacher-student relationships are important facilitators of inclusive intergroup dynamics and anti-victimization behavior (Aral et al., 2022; Brenick, Schachner, & Jugert, 2018). With frequent biased-based bullying targeting immigrant youth in schools (i.e., foreign status, language fluency/accent; Stevens et al., 2020), it is imperative to understand the role of teachers in guiding student intergroup relations. Teachers help create inclusive school environments and model positive and active anti-biased based bullying behaviors. The current study investigates how measures of teacher’s acceptance and responses to bullying relate to immigrant and non-immigrant students’ judgments, justifications, and bystander responses of biased-based bullying. The prioritization or interplay of these justifications when evaluating a social interaction determines how individuals judge the acceptability of victimization and what—or whether—action should be taken to address it (Turiel, 2015).

A total of 808 (Mage=13.90, SD=2.07) middle and high schoolers from several public schools in Connecticut evaluated three scenarios in which White youth socially-excluded Black, Arab, or Latinx recent im/migrant targets. Students evaluated the extent to which the social exclusion was good or bad (judgment), why (justification), and how they would respond as bystanders (bystander response). These relations were further explored by participant gender and participants' immigrant background. We ran three repeated-measures ANOVAs for judgments, justifications, and bystander response with scenario (Arab, Latinx, Black), all as within-subject factors. Participant gender (cisfemale [48.3%]/cismale), immigrant background (immigrant [63.0%]/non-immigrant), teacher acceptance, and teacher bullying response were included as between subject factors (see Table 1 for measure descriptions).

Significant results (see Table 2 for all significant results) for judgments revealed that although participants rated the Latinx and Black victim scenarios as more wrong than the Arab scenario, generally, with increasing perceived helpfulness in teacher’s bullying responses, immigrant boys (M=7.50, SE=0.25) rated the Arab scenario as more wrong than non-immigrant boys (M=6.50, SE=0.28, p<0.05). Additionally, results for justifications indicated that, overall, non-immigrant participants cited justified social exclusion bullying citing group functioning whereas immigrant participants cited empathy. However, when teacher acceptance was perceived low, immigrant students use of empathetic reasoning was more frequent for the Latinx (M=0.52, SE=0.08, p<0.01) and Black (M=0.59, SE=0.10, p<0.01) targets than the Arab target (M=0.38, SE=0.08, p<0.05). Lastly, the results for bystander responses revealed that, generally, when students’ perceived the teacher acceptance as moderate-high, yet perceived teachers’ responses to bullying as (very/a little) unhelpful, both non-immigrant and immigrant (background students selected more passive (M=0.46, SE=0.13, p<.05; immigrant M=0.25, SE=0.06, p<.05) than negative (M=0.01, SE=0.07; immigrant M=0.00, SE=0.06) bystander choices, suggesting that while increased perceived acceptance is important for lowering negative bystander choices, students can still benefit from models of positive and positive-active bystander behaviors from their teachers. In total, these patterns provide initial evidence of how nuance in school climate shapes the way youth judge, reason, and engage with identity-based bullying. These results have implications for creating culturally sensitive teacher engagement and bullying prevention interventions that highlight the subtlety needed in training teachers, immigrant, and non-immigrant youth.

Authors

• Sydney R Klein, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Rui Wu, University of Connecticut

• Heena Shafique

• Megan Clark Kelly, Siena College

• Alaina Brenick, University of Connecticut