Teacher Victimization Patterns Establishing a Group-Based Trajectory Approach to Assessing Predictors of Connectedness to School, Job Satisfaction, and Depression

ABSTRACT

Though extant research has contributed substantially to our understanding of teacher victimization, no attempt has been made to investigate whether there are distinctive patterns of victimization trajectories among teachers and trajectory subgroups are different on their job satisfaction, connectedness to school, and emotional distress. To address this limitation, the present research, using a longitudinal panel sample of middle and high school teachers in a metropolitan area in Texas, investigates the existence of distinctive patterns of teacher victimization trajectories and the relationship between those trajectories and their adverse effects. The findings demonstrate that a substantial proportion of teachers are continuously victimized and teachers who experience persistent victimization (mid/high stable victimized groups) are at elevated risk of disconnectedness to school, job dissatisfaction, and emotional distress.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher victimization
• school violence
• adverse effects of victimization
• victimization trajectory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by Award No. 2015-CK-BX-0019, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.