An Examination of Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Bullying, Their Coping Strategies for Handling Bullying, and Perceived School Climate

Abstract

Bullying is one of the most frequently observed aggressive behaviours in schools. It is quite significant problem since it creates many major problems such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and loneliness in children and adolescents who are bullies, victims, and bully-victims. Studies have revealed that teachers are the people that students mostly ask for help when they are subjected to bullying. Therefore, teachers play a crucial role in the prevention of bullying as bullying is mostly observed in schools and children mostly ask for their help in such a situation. Being actively involved in the bullying processes, teachers become role models for students both with their attitudes and behaviour, and the coping strategies they use when bullying incidents take place. The aim of this research was to analyze teachers’ attitudes towards bullying, the coping strategies they use when they are faced with bullying, and their perceptions of the existing school climate. A total of 396 teachers (280 female, 116 male) from 12 different middle schools participated in this research. The results revealed that female teachers showed humanistic and authoritarian attitudes more, and used working with the victim; enlisting other adults; and disciplining the bully strategies more frequently compared to male teachers. Additionally, significant age differences were found on the coping strategies that the teachers used. According to the results of the regression analysis the coping strategies of the female teachers; the older ones; the teachers that had too much humanistic and uncompassionate attitudes; and the teachers who perceived instructional innovation more positively were found out to be more effective.