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- Creators: Nakagawa, Kathryn
Description
The associations among teacher-student relationships (e.g., close, conflictual, and dependent), peer victimization, internalizing (e.g., sadness, loneliness, and anxiety), and school attitudes (e.g., avoidance, liking) were investigated in a sample of 153 (76 boys and 77 girls) racially diverse (42% Latino and 46% White) third grade students and their teachers (N = 30: 15 T1; 15 T2). Specifically, a two year longitudinal design was used in which data were gathered using self and teacher questionnaires which were administered during the spring of third grade and then a year later when children were in fourth grade. Findings showed that conflictual and overly dependent teacher-student relationships were positively correlated with peer victimization; however, closeness as a quality of teacher-student relationships was not associated with peer victimization, internalizing, school liking, or school avoidance. Support for the hypothesis that teacher-student relationships moderated the relations between peer victimization and internalizing was mixed. Specifically, conflictual teacher-student relationships were found to exacerbate the effects of victimization on internalizing problems whereas no such relationships were found for close or dependent relationships. Taken together, findings from this study offer further evidence that the relationships students form with their teachers, especially conflictual and overly dependent teacher-student relationships, contribute to their psychological development, and may be especially influential for children who are victimized by classmates.
ContributorsKremer, Paul Kenneth (Author) / Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky J (Thesis advisor) / Moore, Elsie (Committee member) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Despite some prevailing attitudes that bullying is normal, relatively innocuous behavior, it has recently been recognized as a serious problem in schools worldwide. Victimized students are more likely to evidence poor academic and semi-academic outcomes, experience social difficulties, and drop out of school in comparison to their non-victimized peers. Although anti-bullying programs have proliferated during the last decade, those aimed at helping children cope with bullying often suffer from a lack of basic research on the effectiveness of children's responses to bullying. The focus of this study was to delineate the ways in which elementary school-aged children typically cope with peer victimization, then to examine which strategies reduce future risk for harassment and associated adjustment problems to inform prevention and intervention program development. A cohort-sequential design was used to examine the effectiveness of children's strategies for coping with peer victimization. The sample included 317 children (157 boys; 49.5% Caucasian, 50.5% Hispanic; M age =10 years 5 months at T1) who were surveyed in the Fall and Spring of two academic years. Confirmatory factory analysis was used to validate the factor structure of the coping measure used and internal reliability was verified. Comparison of means indicated differences in children's coping based upon sex and age. For example, girls tend to cope more emotionally and cognitively, while boys are more behavioral in their coping. Regression results indicated that a number of specific relationships were present between coping, victimization, loneliness, and anxiety. For example, support seeking behavior was effective at decreasing victimization for younger children (fourth graders) who experienced high initial victimization. In contrast, revenge seeking behavior was predictive of increased victimization for both girls and highly victimized students. Problem solving was effective at reducing adjustment problems over time for younger students and, although results for older students were non-significant, it appears to be a promising strategy due to a lack of association with negative future outcomes. Results highlight the importance of identifying influential characteristics of individual children in order for prevention and intervention programs to successfully decrease the incidence and adverse impact of bullying behavior.
ContributorsPolasky, Sarah Anne (Author) / Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky (Thesis advisor) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Moore, Elsie G. J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010