Teachers’ cognitions and handling strategies regarding bully-victims

ABSTRACT

This study aimed at exploring secondary school teachers’ cognitions regarding bully-victims, including what handling strategies those teachers often adopt to tackle the dual problem inherent to this population. In this study, 13 secondary school teachers were invited to participate in interviews, and the results indicated that most of the teachers initially identified bully-victims as merely victims. However, with increased interactions involving bully-victims and more complaints from peers, teachers began to adjust their cognitions, and they recognised that these students could not be categorised into any specific role. Moreover, the results of this study also indicated that the teachers’ cognitions regarding bully-victims influenced the handling strategies employed with these students. Teachers often gave reprimands and assistance in parallel, regardless of the involved students’ roles, and they improved bully-victims’ situations by cooperating with schools, peers, and parents. The results suggest that teachers can utilise both punishment and assistance in parallel to effectively handle both the problems and needs of bully-victims versus relying on either one or the other.

KEYWORDS:

• Bully-victims
• handling strategies
• school bullying
• secondary school teacher

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received the financial support by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (No. 105CFA0800101).

Notes on contributors

Yu-Hsien Sung

Yu-Hsien Sung: Yu-Hsien Sung is a joint doctoral student of Ghent University in Belgium and National Sun, Yat-sen University in Taiwan. His research focuses are mainly on school bullying, teacher education, and school guidance and counseling.

Chia-Ying Lu

Chia-Ying Lu: Chia-Ying Lu got a bachelor of art from Department of Sociology, National Sun, Yat-sen University, Taiwan. Currently, she is working on her master for educational psychology and counseling at National Pingtung University, Taiwan. Her research interest is in the areas of the intervention for school bullying. 

Li-Ming Chen

Li-Ming Chen: Li-Ming Chen is associate professor in Institute of Education at National Sun, Yat-sen University in Taiwan. His actual field of research focuses is mainly on school bullying, qualitative research, and Rasch measurement.

Martin Valcke

Martin Valcke: Martin Valcke is full professor in the field of ‘Instructional Sciences’ at the Ghent University, Belgium and head of the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. Building on his PhD-work in the field of educational information sciences, his actual field of research focuses mainly on the innovation of Higher Education and the integrated use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Currently, he is cooperating with his doctoral student to develop an innovative video-based instrument for measuring teachers' competencies on bullying intervention.