EYES ON THE TEACHER AS A BYSTANDER IN SCHOOL BULLYING: Insight into helpful and harmful teacher responses to bullying

Worldwide, many children are suffering from being bullied by fellow students at school. Although teachers are considered key players in bullying intervention, current evidence is limited and several gaps in the literature can be identified. This research project is designed to improve our understanding of how teachers’ responses to bullying incidents among students contribute to several bullying-related processes. Four studies with different designs will be conducted (i.e., longitudinal, qualitative, cross-sectional, experimental). First, in a longitudinal study with students and teachers from upper elementary school, a person-oriented approach will be used to discover profiles of how teachers respond to bullying. Next, we will investigate the links between these profiles and bullying processes and whether they moderate the association between victimization and social-emotional outcomes. Second, starting from the idea that, like students, teachers can play different roles as bystanders in bullying (e.g., defending the victim, reinforcing the bully, remaining non-involved), students and teachers will be involved in a qualitative study to extend the participant role approach to teachers. Third, besides building theory, we will conduct a cross-sectional study to develop and validate an instrument to measure teachers’ participant roles in bullying from the perspective of both students and teachers. Fourth, upper elementary students will participate in an experimental vignette study to investigate the effects of different teachers’ participant role behaviors on outcomes related to victimization, the teacher and the peers. Taken together, this project will provide more insight into teachers’ role as bystanders in bullying and helpful and harmful teacher responses to bullying.

Keywords:Bullying, Teacher responses, Participant roles approach

Disciplines:Educational and school psychology