The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim's contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students.Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend ('none of my business'), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.
The overall objective of this study was to examine the links between teacher-student relationship quality and student engagement, delimited to affective and behavioural engagement. We used a sequential explanatory mixed methods research approach that consisted of a quantitative phase, in which survey data were collected and analysed within a short-term longitudinal design, followed by a qualitative phase, in which focus group interviews and constructed grounded theory analysis were conducted. Participants included 234 students from two Swedish compulsory schools in the quantitative phase, and 120 in the qualitative phase. The quantitative findings revealed that teacher-student relationship quality predicted student engagement one year later, even when controlling for sex, age, and prior student engagement. The longitudinal association between teacher-student relationship quality and student engagement was unidirectional. The qualitative findings reported students' own perspectives on what they considered to be a good teacher and their ideas of how their teachers and classroom setting influence their affective and behavioural engagement at school. Two significant categories emerged: 'teacher being' and 'teacher doing'.
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