Bullying among primary school-aged students: which factors could strengthen their tendency towards resilience?

ABSTRACT

Resilience is the capacity to cope successfully with various threats. This paper aims to adapt the Resilience-Scale of Schumacher et al. (2004. Die Resilienzskala – ein Fragebogen zur Erfassung der psychischen Widerstandsfähigkeit als Personmerkmal. [The Resilience Scale – A Questionnaire to Measure Mental Resilience as a Personal Characteristic]. Zentrum für Klinische Psychologie, Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie) to measure the tendency of being resilient even before a threat occurs. Since primary school students are exposed to various threats at school, 535 4th grade students of Austrian primary schools were surveyed for the study. The reliability of the short-scale was found to be acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .66), and the tendency towards resilience can be explained by the students’ perception of their social inclusion in class (F (1,252) = 15.11, p<.05) and the relationship with their mothers (F (2, 251) = 10, 02, p<.05). The stability of the students’ tendency of being resilient was only moderate. A similar correlation between resilience and school-wellbeing for victims and non-victims of bullying can be reported. Future studies should focus more on primary school students’ resilience and related protective factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• protective factors
• bullying
• primary school
• inclusive education

Introduction

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2017) report, a large number (19.1%) of Austrian students reported being bullied at school at least a few times a month. Considering the consequences of bullying for victims and its long term effects such as social isolation, academic or other mental health problems (Olweus and Breivik 2014; Wolke and Lereya 2015), this number is alarming and a cause for action. Bullying manifests itself as ‘a range of proactively aggressive behaviours such as hitting, kicking, threatening, destroying others’ objects, harassing, disparaging, or verbal abuse’ (Lösel and Bender 2014, 60). All these actions are frequently directed against a human being (victim) for prolonged periods and occur due to an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim (Olweus 1993). Although the consequences of bullying are well researched, the question is why only a sub-group of bullied victims faces negative developments (Lösel and Bender 2014). One answer is their capacity for resilience. According to Masten (2014, 6), ‘Resilience can be broadly defined as the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten function, viability, or development’.

In the 1970s, psychologists and psychiatrists started paying attention to the phenomenon of resilience. They wanted to examine at-risk children who adapted to adversities and developed positively. These children were often described as invulnerable or invincible (Masten 2014; Rutter 2012; Luthar and Cicchetti 2000). The first renowned and remarkable study on resilience was that of Kauai (Werner and Smith 1992), which surveyed why 700 children of the island Kauai developed positively or negatively while growing up in difficult situations, such as poverty, peri-natal stress or difficult caretaking environments. Since then, resilience has been researched by various disciplines. Scientists generally agree that resilience research should analyse how an individual – despite adversities – manages to maintain a positive development, whereas others give up (Rutter 1987) and which resources people need to protect their mental and physical health (Bonanno et al. 2007).

The preservation or recovery of a person’s function depends on different factors that can modify the negative effects of life circumstances (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000), viz., vulnerability, risk and protective factors. Vulnerability is the extent to which a person reacts adversely to a threat (Proag 2014) and is sometimes seen as the counterpart of resilience (Petermann and Schmidt 2006). Risk and protective factors influence resilience and are categorised at an individual (e.g. socio-demographic background), family (e.g. relationship to the parents) or societal level, which encompasses the school, the neighbourhood and the wider community (e.g. support of the teacher) (Meng et al. 2018; Werner and Smith 1992).

Risk factors increase the likelihood of negative effects, e.g. a mental or physical disorder (Lösel and Farrington 2012) or reduce the probability of a positive behaviour or development outcome (Wustmann 2015). Generally, the number of risk factors may determine the outcome effects (Fraser, Galinsky, and Richman 1999). However, since resilience is an interactive progress (Rutter 1987), the number of risk factors as well as their quality (e.g. intensity, duration, sectionality) are important, whether they are biological, psychological, social or ecological (Ungar 2019).

These risk factors occur as a specific life event (e.g. the divorce of the parents) or as a stable condition over time (e.g. poverty, disability). Risk factors are not disorder-specific but related to multiple maladjusted outcomes (Crews et al. 2007).

Protective factors are the opposite of risk factors (e.g. positive social support), modifying and compensating the impact of the risk factors (Fraser, Galinsky, and Richman 1999), thus reducing the likelihood of a disorder (Petermann and Schmidt 2006). They can moderate risk factors in a positive direction (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000) to maintain positive function and development (Nash and Bowen 2002). Protective factors have to be distinguished from promoting factors, which are associated only with positive development and help to overcome threats (Fergus and Zimmerman 2005).

According to Rutter (1987), protective factors have four purposes: (1) reduce the impact, (2) reduce the likelihood of negative chain reaction, (3) promote self-esteem and self-efficacy and (4) open up opportunities.

Both risk and protective factors are no stable constructs and can change over time, implying that the ability of being resilient does not last throughout life (Meng et al. 2018); people who coped with a difficulty ‘at one point in their life may react adversely to other stressors when their situation is different’ (Rutter 1987, 317).

Resilience of school-aged students

Researchers on resilience have identified different protective factors that significantly promote resilience or successful adaption. Overall, resilient children of high-risk groups have more protective factors than their non-resilient peers (Martinez-Torteya et al. 2009). In the following sections, these factors are described in detail and examined to better explain resilience.

Protective factors in students for resilience

At an individual level, several studies demonstrate that in childhood, boys are more vulnerable than girls to a range of disturbances. For example, if children are exposed to parental anti-social personality symptoms, boys are less likely to be resilient (Jaffee et al. 2007). Boys are even more likely to receive a special-educational-needs (SEN) label (Murray 2003), which in turn causes more risks (e.g. bullying, discrimination) (Mu, Hu, and Wang 2017) because students with disabilities face more disadvantages throughout their lives (Hart et al. 2014). The impact of SEN or migrant background on the resilience of students in primary school age has not been sufficiently studied so far. However, the OECD (2018) recently published a report about the resilience of 15-year-old students with immigrant backgrounds. The resilience of these students was influenced by basic levels of academic proficiency, school-belonging, satisfaction in life, school work-related anxiety and motivation to achieve.

Protective factors in the family for resilience

The general importance of family support has been described by Bowlby (1969), who dwelt on the crucial importance of the educator-child relationship for the child’s further development. An emotional-positive child–parent relation with secure bonding and an emotional, warm, accepting and structure-giving educational style predict the child’s growth into a competent adolescent and adult (Baumrind 1991). A review of 247 papers by Meng et al. (2018) reported consistent protection in life and functioning if there is a close mother–child relationship and maternal care. The socio-economic background of the parents too influences children’s resilience- a higher socio-economic background, characterised among other factors by higher income, higher educational level, good living conditions and financial resources (Bornstein and Bradley 2014) acts protectively for resilience (Stepleman, Wright, and Bottonari 2009).

Protective factors in school for resilience

In literature, the following factors are described as protective in school: the feeling of integration in class, positive school well-being (Lösel and Bender 2014) and positive teacher-student-relationship (Werner 1996). Students who feel personally accepted and integrated, for example, report higher satisfaction in life (Moffa, Dowdy, and Furlong 2016). Regarding well-being, Schwab and Rossmann (2020) examined the well-being in class in relation to their psychical health and found that positive school well-being is related to fewer psychosomatic complaints and higher subjective health and linked the teacher-student relationship and peer relations to depressive symptoms. Well-being in school depends, among others, also on a caring teacher-student relationship (Murray 2003). A favourite teacher also acts as a protective factor for resilient students (Werner 2008).

Resilience as a protective factor

Resilience in research is often seen as a result of coping with a previous incident or situation (Goldstein and Brooks 2005). However, it was less often analysed as to whether resilience itself could act protectively too – especially, whether it could protect students from the negative effects after a threat (e.g. bullying), because, overall, a protective factor not only has a direct function but also moderates the impact of risk and acts as a buffer (Lösel and Farrington 2012). It is an interesting question to ask whether resilience could moderate the effects of bullying or, more specifically, whether students with high resilience will develop better after bullying in comparison to those with low resilience as bullying occurs as a risk factor for future health and social problems, e.g. depression or eating disorders (Wolke et al. 2013).

Measuring resilience

Prior work on resilience has executed longitudinal studies and monitored children until they were grown-up based on quantitative and qualitative surveys, psychological and medical check-ups (Werner and Smith 1992; Laucht, Esser, and Schmidt 2000). Since big longitudinal studies need an immense investment of time and resources, current scholars perform cross-sectional studies on larger samples or longitudinal studies, with only two or three measurement points (e.g. Jump into School: a current study of the Deutsches Resilienz Zentrum 2018). Additionally, they analyse a large number of factors: for example, the impact of genetic constitutions (Masten 2014) (e.g. Gutenberg Brain Study). A cross-sectional study provides a lot of data more easily, but it cannot imply causality. Above all, while it is important to measure the resilience of children, there are only a few instruments that measure resilience at this age. Examples are the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-R) for children between 5 and 9 or 10 and 23 years (Resilience Research Centre 2016), the Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ) (Gartland et al. 2011) for ages 12–18 or the Resilience Scale for Children (RS-10) for 7–11 year- olds (The Resilience Centre 2019). Another instrument are the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (RSCA, Prince-Embury 2006, 2007), which are also designed for children and adolescents to examine personal strengths as well as their vulnerability. However, no economical and easily-applicable scale was available, which could quickly measure the resilience of primary school students and in particular, no scale was found which measures a tendency of resilience of students, enabling professionals or teachers to identify high-risk children in advance.

Research objectives

Resilience has been examined by various studies; however, there is still a lack of research on children’s resilience, especially in primary school and about the impact of personality traits such as a disability or a migrant background. Particularly in Austria, no study has been conducted yet to investigate the resilience of primary school students.

The current study predominantly focuses on the adapted scale of Schumacher et al. (2004) and its psychometric quality. The study examines the reliability and the factorial structure, along with the long-term stability and its validity. For validity, we use the correlation with school well-being. Students with higher school well-being should also have higher values of resilience. As resilience plays an important role in long-term development, we are examining the effects of resilience on student’s well-being after being victimised by peers. The stability of resilience should also be taken into account. According to the earlier literature, we envisage resilience to be a relatively unstable construct. Regarding ground differences and influencing factors, the following results (based on the literature) are expected:

1. Girls have a higher tendency to be resilient than boys.

2. Students with higher-educated parents have a higher tendency to be resilient than those with lower-educated parents.

3. Students with SEN have a lower tendency of being resilient than those without SEN.

4. Students with immigrant backgrounds have a lower tendency of being resilient than those without one.

5. Students with a better relationship with their teacher, mother or father have a higher tendency to be resilient.

6. Students who feel better socially integrated in class have a higher tendency to be resilient.

Moreover, we would like to explore whether the correlation between resilience and well-being is similar for students who have been bullied and those who have not.

Study design

The study is part of the ATIS-STEP project (Attitudes Towards Inclusive Schooling – Students, Teachers and Parents; see Schwab 2018), which was conducted in the federal state of Styria (Austria). The data was collected on two measuring points: one at the beginning (T1: October/November 2016) of the school year 2016/2017 and the other at its end (T2: May/June 2017). In all, 48 classes from fourth grade participated in T1 and 38 classes in T2.

Participants

The sample consisted of 535 primary school children (268 boys, 267 girls, mean age = 9–11 years) in Austrian inclusive schools of the federal state of Styria, including those with immigrant and SEN background. All the participating students were in the fourth grade and were included in the sample, only if they had attended both measuring points. The sample comprised 144 students with an immigrant background and 66 with special educational needs. The diagnosis of having SEN and immigrant background was captured with a questionnaire answered by the teachers. The students were considered to have an immigrant background if one parent was born abroad. This study was financially supported by [blinded for review].

Instrumentation

Resilience

To measure resilience, a shorter version of the German resilience scale of Schumacher et al. (2004) was used. They refined and translated the Resilience-scale of Wagnild and Young (1993), a standard measurement for resilience assessment approaches. The whole instrument of Schuhmacher and colleagues consists of 25 items utilises a 7-point-Likert-scale and has adequate reliability with a Cronbachs-α between .82 and .95 (Schumacher et al. 2004).

For measuring the tendency of being resilient, four items of the resilience scale of Schumacher et al. (2004) were selected. In the original version of Wagnild and Young (1993) the following items were used.

1. I manage one way or another.

2. I usually take the things in stride.

3. When I am in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it.

4. I have enough energy to do what I have to do.

The scale should be economic and easily applicable in the classroom or other educational or social institutions. It is answered quickly on a five-step format from ‘completely disagree’ (1) on ‘neither’ (3) to ‘completely agree’ (5) (e.g. ‘When I'm in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it’).

Relationships

In our study, we used the ‘Student-Teacher-Relationship’ (STRS-short form) scale to examine the relationship of the student to the teacher and the ‘Child–Parent-Relationship-Scale’ (CPRS-short form Pianta 2018) to examine the relationship of the student to the parents. The original scales were designed with 15 items and used a 5-point Likert-scale. In both the scales, the adults (teacher, parents) assessed the relationship to the child or student (Pianta 2018). The Cronbachs-α of the CPRS was between .64 and .84 (Driscoll and Pianta 2011) and of the STRS, it was between .72 and .81 (Early Child Care Research Network 2003).

For the current study, we took up the item ‘I share my feelings and experiences with my mother/father/teacher’ and prepared a four-point Likert scale to rate the students’ relationship with their mother, father and teacher.

Well-being and social inclusion in class

Students’ well-being and social inclusion in class were measured with the Perception of Inclusion Questionnaire (PIQ, Venetz et al. 2015). The questionnaire measures three areas of inclusion: emotional inclusion, social inclusion and academic self-concept, on the basis of 12 questions and a four-step rating scale from ‘not at all true’ (1) to ‘certainly true’ (4) (Venetz et al. 2015). All items used a short and assessable wording, making the assessment suitable for students with low reading abilities too (Example-Item: ‘I have a lot of friends in my class’). High psychometric qualities of the instrument have already been shown by Zurbriggen et al. (2017). In the current sample, the sub-scale ‘well-being’ was used to measure the well-being in class (Cronbachs-α = 89) and the sub-scale ‘social inclusion’ to capture the social inclusion in class (Cronbachs-α=.69).

Bullying

Bullying was captured with the questionnaire of Olweus (2006), who assessed victims and perpetrators of bullying on 36 items and a 5-point scale. Following this, Lindemann (2017) provided a shorter German-version with 10 items to survey students about being bullied and doing bullying on five items each. In the current study, only the items of Lindemann’s version about being a victim of bullying were used. The reliability of this 5- item short scale was .82.

Data analysis

Data management and analysis were performed using SPSS 25, before missing data was replaced with the expectation maximisation technique (Nelwamondo, Mohamed, and Marwala 2007). The reported results belong to the dataset without missing values.

Results

Psychometric analysis

To analyse the psychometric quality of the Resilience-scale, it was first examined whether all the four items load on one factor. For analysing the factorial structure of the 4 items, a principal component analysis was used. The principal component analyses (KMO = .704, Barlett’s Test = sig., p<.001) of the 4 items-scale yielded one component, which explained 50.65% of the variance. Next, a reliability analysis was performed. The internal consistency of the 4-item scale was limited, with a Cronbach’s-α of .66. Further, the reliability would not increase, if one item was omitted.

In addition, a Pearson correlation was calculated to investigate the relation between resilience and school well-being. The correlation coefficient was significant, indicating that higher resilience is linked with higher well-being (r=.24, p<.01).

To address the question of the stability of resilience, the retest-reliability coefficient was calculated first. The bivariate correlation was significant, with a week uphill linear relation of r = .35 (p<.01).

Second, the resilience of students of the first measurement point was compared with the second measurement point by using a paired t-test. Results show that the tendency to be resilient is significantly higher at the end of the school year (t (534) = 3.71, p<.01), with a mean difference of .15. Overall, all primary school students were characterised by a rather high resilience (T1: M1 = 4.05, SD= .83; T2: M2 = 4.2, SD= .75) as the empirical means were above the theoretical mean of the scale (M = 3). There were only a few students with low resilience: Only 7% of the students rated their resilience below 1.

Predicting the tendency of being resilient

Multi-level regression analyses (to take the nested data structure into account) were calculated to examine predictors of resilience. All metric variables (resilience, social-integration, relationship to the mother, the father and the teacher, bullying) were z-standardised and categorical variables (gender, SPF, immigrant background, educational background of the mother and the father) were defined with 0 and 1. While for the criteria (resilience) the data from the second measurement point was used, the predictors were taken from the first measurement point. Results of the model without any predictor variables showed that there was almost no variance at the class-level, 99.81% was explained at the individual level (deviance = 1217,26, Wald-Z=16.35, p<.01) and the variance at the class level was not significant. Hence, a stepwise linear regression was used to examine significant predictors of resilience. Two models were significant. In the first model, social inclusion in the classroom was statistically significant to promote resilience. Around 5.7% of resilience (see table 1) could be explained by the social inclusion in class (F (1,252) = 15.11, p<.05). The second model included social inclusion in class and the relationship with the mother. The model explained the resilience by these two factors with an R² of .074 (adjusted R²=.067) (see Table 1), which means that 7.4% of resilience could be explained by the feeling of integration in the classroom and the relationship to the mother (F (2, 251) = 10, 02, p<.05). The results of the semi-partial correlation showed that social inclusion in class has the greatest influence on resilience (r = .238, p<.05).

Table 1. Regression model.

Model	Predictor	R	R^2	Adjusted R^2	ß	p
1	Social inclusion	.238	.057	.053	.238	<.001
2	Social inclusion	.272	.074	.067	.208	<.01
	Relationship to the mother				.135	.031

In addition, the variables SEN (r = −.113, p < .05) and the relationship to the father (r = .121, p<.05), significantly correlated with resilience. These variables did not correlate significantly with resilience: Gender (r= .082, n.s.), education of the mother (r= .086, n.s.), education of the father (r=−.084, n.s.), immigrant background (r= .016, n.s.), relationship to the teacher (r= .081, n.s.) and bullying (r= −.061). The Durbin Watson statistic was .879, which indicates a positive auto-correlation and leads to limitations in the interpretation.

Resilience as a protective factor

To analyse the correlation between resilience and school well-being, the sample was divided into two groups: victims and non-victims of bullying. Not being bullied included those students, who were never bullied (n = 176) and students who have been victims more than twice or thrice comprised groups who have been bullied (n = 137). First, results showed that the resilience of the first measurement point correlated with the well-being at the second measurement point for the total sample (victims and non-victims,) (r = .20, p<.01). Next, a split-file was set for the two groups (non-victims and victims). Results showed a correlation of r = .30 (p<.01), for the group, who were never victims of bullying. The correlation with the students without bullying was r = .30 (p=.01); however, it was not significant for victims of bullying (r= .10, n.s.). To compare the statistical significance, a Fisher's to z transformation was done. According to the calculation, the correlation was not significant (z=1.8330, p= .067).

Discussion

As there is limited research in the context of primary school students and resilience, this study focused especially on students’ tendency towards resilience. In summary, the key results of the study are as follows:

The reliability of the adapted scale ‘Tendency towards resilience’ is moderate and students in primary school have high self-rated resilience. The tendency towards resilience can be explained by students’ perception of their social inclusion in class and the relationship with their mother. As resilience is important for the future development and academic career of a child, it is essential to measure resilience before a long term negative effect occurs. The adapted instrument of this study gives this opportunity. Results indicated that the four items short scale to measure the tendency of being resilient is suitable as a screening instrument. The one-dimensional factor structure can be confirmed, based on the fact that only four items have been included. The reliability can be considered as low, but acceptable. Moreover, the validity of the screening instrument has been shown by the positive correlation with school-wellbeing. In a preventive approach, the scale would make it possible to reveal more at-risk students, who have a lower tendency of being resilient. Subsequently, target interventions could follow for these students to promote their resilience.

Generally, it should be noted positively that all students in this sample are characterised by a rather high resilience, with only a few with very low resilience. This result seems to be positive for the students in Austria, although in the debate on education, it is often said that children are affected by bullying or that children with an immigrant background are stigmatised. An explanation for this could be that the number of those children is very small or that they too have already developed resilience.

Regarding stability, as assumed, resilience is not a highly stable construct. Interestingly in this study, resilience was higher at the end of the school year, as students feel more stressed in the beginning than at the end of the school year. During the year, they learn to meet and cope with challenges and get accustomed to the demands in school. This would underline the fact that resilience is the result of continuous dynamic interactions among various internal (individual) and external factors (familial and social) (Rutter 1987).

Further, results indicate that the relationship to the mother and the social inclusion in class could explain the resilience at the end of the school year. However, social inclusion turned out to have the greatest impact. To have friends in the class seems to be important to defend negative threats and pursue a positive development. Especially in difficult times, positive friendships in class can create emotional support (Wustmann 2015). Moreover, belonging to a peer group at school can have a significant impact on well-being, the development of school skills and school performance (Opp 2008). Hence, peer relations in class are important not only for resilience but also for other skills.

Lösel and Farrington (2012) postulate that a close relationship with at least one parent and intensive parental supervision have protective effects too. This is in line with the result of the relationship with mothers having a positive influence on students’ resilience. Although the relationship with the father correlates with resilience and in literature it could be found that all educators are important for resilience, the relationship with the mother seems to have a bigger effect in the present study. The NICHD-Study (Early Child Care Research Network 2003) confirms this outcome. They reported that a high-quality interaction between mother and child is the strongest predictor for school and social development outcomes, compared to day-care-facilities or the relationship to the father. It can be assumed that the mother still spends most of her quality time with her child and has the closest relationship, although Austrian policy offers opportunities for the fathers to spend more time at home, such as parental leave or part-time work. Inconsistent with the results found in literature, the relationship with the teacher also seemed to play a minor role in the resilience of primary school students. A possible explanation is that teachers have reduced emotional attachment to the student than parents.

All these findings underline Luthar’s thesis that ‘resilience rests, fundamentally, on relationships’ (Luthar 2006, 780), while it even makes clearer that students with less emotional contacts have a lower resilience.

This would also confirm that students with SEN have a lower resilience compared to students without it. Very often, students with SEN have fewer friends than those without (Bossaert et al. 2013; Koster et al. 2009). Another explanation for lower resilience might be that students with SEN face more risk-factors and disadvantages and have poorer adult outcomes (Murray 2003). The difference between students with immigrant backgrounds and students without, regarding their resilience could not be verified. This is contrary to previous literature. However, the results differ perhaps because students with immigrant backgrounds in this study did not have parents who are asylum seekers or refugees. Bromand et al. (2012) found increased psychiatric morbidity in the asylum seekers, refugees and illegal migrants, compared to labour migrants or migrant residents. Unlike assumed sex, the former education of the parents and bullying do not predict the resilience.

The correlation between resilience and emotional well-being is similar for students who have been victims of bullying and for non-victims. Contrary to our expectations, resilience did not play an important role in well-being after a negative event. Therefore, no evidence was found for the assumption that resilience itself acts as a protective factor after a negative event (being bullied). Besides that, descriptive values even show a higher correlation for well-being for non-victims; however, the correlation was not significant for victims. Future research would need to investigate the tendency towards resilience in a longitudinal design with several measurement points, to get more information about resilience as a protective factor.

Some limitations of the study have to be mentioned.

First of all, the instrument has only four items. Therefore, it should be used only as a screening instrument. Moreover, the reliability was relatively low. In addition, the variance in the data has been relatively small, as most students rated their tendency towards resilience high. Therefore, the prediction of resilience was limited. The data of the study was also not representative: for further research, it would be interesting to compare the general school population with the results of the study. Another limitation is the research design. The study deals only with quantitative data. As a further step, a qualitative survey would be appropriate to show individual developmental paths. Further, the results are related to the culture of Central Europe: in other, less privileged parts of the world, the results could be different.

Despite these limitations, the study elucidates the potential of the tendency to be resilient scale, which could be established as a quickly executable instrument in the educational praxis.

Conclusion

Empirical analyses show that the items used are capable of measuring the tendency to be resilient. Using this instrument would be significant, especially for examining at-risk students and intervening in respect to those with low values in their resilience, to fortify them to face the future.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Province of Styria [grant number ABT08-247083/2015-34].

Notes on contributors

Tanja Ganotz

Tanja Ganotz is currently writing her PhD thesis in the field of inclusive education with a focus on resilience of primary and secondary school students at the University of Vienna, Austria. Besides her research activities she is a class leading teacher in a primary school in Styria, Austria.

Susanne Schwab

Susanne Schwab, professor for School Pedagogy with particular emphasis on Social, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity at the Centre for Teacher Education, University of Vienna, Austria, and Extraordinary Professor at the Research Focus Area Optentia, North- West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. She is currently managing several research projects in the field of social integration and socioemotional development of students with special educational needs.

Mike Lehofer

Mike Lehofer did his master degrees in psychology and educational sciences in Graz. At the Institute of Educational Sciences he worked on several projects (e.g. LARS, ATIS-SI, ATIS-Step). His research interest focuses on interculturality of students as well as affective disorders. Since 2018 he has been working as a social pedagogue at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Styria, Austria.