Elements Contributing to Teachers' Role in Bullying

Elements Contributing to Teachers’ Role in Bullying
This dissertation focused on examining elements that could contribute to teachers’ likelihood to intervene in bullying. Bullying has detrimental consequences for all those who are involved, and occurs in every school. Since teachers play a crucial role in preventing and tackling bullying, it is alarming that teachers indicate having difficulties with intervening in bullying or lack the confidence to do so. Previous research also showed differences among teachers in the extent to which they intervene, and to which they execute anti-bullying lessons. At the start of this dissertation, there appeared to be great variety in predictor and outcome variables examined in previous research. In addition, a theoretical framework was lacking, which could be used to integrate existing research and serve as a fundament for future studies and data collection. The goal of this dissertation was therefore to create an overview of existing literature and develop a theoretical framework to integrate existing studies, and to serve as a starting point for the examination of individual and contextual elements contributing to teachers’ likelihood to intervene in bullying. Results showed a positive association between teachers’ likelihood to intervene, and their attitudes as well as their internal attribution styles. The relationship with their students was positively associated with their students’ self-esteem, in particular victims’ self-esteem. Finally, the context in which teachers’ operated was examined, showing clear differences between primary and secondary school teachers in perceived school culture, which could affect the implementation of anti-bullying programs and strategies used to tackle bullying in schools.