Preservice teachers' coping styles and their responses to bullying

Abstract

The literature suggests that teacher responses to bullying are a function of the type of aggression (overt vs. relational), the gender of the children involved, and characteristics of the teacher. We extended the literature by examining teachers' dispositional coping styles as a predictor of their responses to bullying. Preservice teachers (N = 97) completed a measure of coping styles and then responded to eight vignettes showing overt or relational aggression occurring among boys or girls. Overt aggression was viewed as a bigger problem than relational aggression, and teacher interventions were deemed more necessary for overt than relational aggression. Preservice teachers who typically use more active coping, less denial coping, and less self‐blame responded more actively to bullying, especially in response to relational aggression among boys. These findings point to the need to consider teacher coping styles when working with them to intervene effectively in responding to bullying. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Teachers’ Intervention in School Bullying: A Qualitative Analysis on Italian Teachers

“…However, they felt less confident working with the parents of bullies and directly dealing with bullies. PSTs studied by Kahn et al (2012) said they were more likely to take action in response to overt aggression than to covert. However, the negative outcomes experienced by pupils regardless of the type of victimization is an indicator that these teachers were not trained and sensitized to address the problem properly.…”

Teachers as obligated bystanders: Grading and relating administrator support and peer response to teacher direct intervention in school bullying

“…This includes contextual factors related to a teacher's school building, such as assigned grade level, school policy, implementation of school‐wide bullying prevention programs, training, as well as teacher perception of school climate and administrator support (Anagnostopoulos et al., ; Bauman & Del Rio, ; Bauman, Rigby, & Hoppa, ; Bradshaw, Sawyer, & O'Brennan, ; Espelage, Polanin, & Low, ; Nishina, ; Novick & Isaacs, ; O'Brennan, Waasdorp, & Bradshaw, ; Payne, Gottfredson, & Gottfredson, ; Skinner, Babinski, & Gifford, ; Studer & Mynatt, ; Whitted & Dupper, ; Yoon & Bauman, ; Yoon et al., ). Student characteristics such as gender, popularity, and social skills and teacher characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, experience, coping skills, beliefs, empathy, and personal experience with bullying have been shown to influence teacher response to bullying situations (Anagnostopoulos et al., ; Bauman & Del Rio, ; Bradshaw et al., ; Byers, Caltabiano, & Caltabiano, ; Craig et al., ; Duong & Bradshaw, ; Ellis & Shute, ; Grumm & Hein, ; Hektner & Swenson, ; Kahn, Jones, & Wieland, ; Kochenderfer‐Ladd & Pelletier, ; Mishna et al., ; Yoon, ; Yoon et al., ).…”

The obligated bystander: An analysis of factors which influence teacher intervention in school bullying

“…This may be in part because pre-service teacher programs do not address bullying in the curriculum (Benítez, García-Berbén, & Fernández-Cabezas, 2009). New teachers face a number of challenges and may become overwhelmed when they don't receive training to address issues such as bullying and specifically relational aggression (Kahn, Jones, & Wieland, 2012). As previously indicated, Doung and Bradshaw (2013) found that experienced teachers were better able to understand the threat of bullying.…”

“…The manner in which pre-service teachers cope with stress has also been found to impact intervention in school bullying. Specifically, pre-service teachers are less likely to think social bullying among boys requires teacher intervention when they utilize denial and self-blame to cope with stress (Kahn, Jones, & Wieland, 2012).…”

“…Research currently indicates that pre-service teachers are unprepared to address bullying and may become overwhelmed (Bauman & Del Rio, 2006;Kahn, Jones, & Wieland, 2012).…”