Abstract
Bullying is a public health issue of great concern worldwide. The occurrence of student bullying is affected by many factors. However, the impact of teachers’ behaviors on student bullying remains to be further discussed. This study explores gender differences in the influencing factors of teenagers’ bullying behavior and the moderating effects of teachers’ praise/criticism on teenagers’ bullying behavior. Data were derived from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). A total of 9449 students aged 14–15 years were followed from grade 7 through grade 8 (4937 boys, 4512 girls). The chi-square test was used to determine the gender distribution of bullying behavior. Logistic regression was used to analyze the moderating effects of teachers’ behaviors on students’ bullying behavior, and interaction diagrams were generated. Three times as many boys (15.57%) than girls (5.14%) had ever bullied vulnerable students in the past year (p < 0.001). Teacher praise or criticism had moderating effects on the relationships between different individual/peer factors and bullying behavior among boys and girls (p < 0.05, p < 0.01 or p < 0.001). Moreover, teenagers with bullying behavior had significantly higher levels of cursing or saying swearwords, quarreling, fighting, engaging in antisocial behaviors, tobacco/alcohol usage, surfing the Internet, and playing games in cyber cafes. The abovementioned externalizing/substance addictive behaviors may be risk signals for the occurrence of bullying (all p < 0.001 by the chi-square test for trend or t-test). It may be beneficial for school officials to be alert to specific behaviors that may lead to bullying others. Furthermore, teachers can actively play the role of “gatekeepers” for bullying through standardized training and intervention to protect “the second home of students”.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We express our sincere appreciation to all research assistants and investigators for their dedicated assistance in the data collection of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). Mr. An Li and Miss Shengnan Lin are also acknowledged for helpful comments on our earlier draft or revised manuscript. We would especially like to thank our participants in the study for their time and willingness to participate.
Funding
The project was supported by the Scientific Research Grant of Fujian Province of China (No. Z0230104), the XMU Training Program of Innovation and Enterpreneurship for Undergraduates (No. 2018Y1053), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 1082204112281). The sponsors of the project had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation and in writing the manuscript.
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XL and YCC were major contributors in study design, data analysis and interpretation, and drafted the manuscript. CYL and YJL have made major modifications and improvements to the manuscript. SXZ supervised the study and critically reviewed the manuscript several times. MJC, XRQ and SZ were contributed in literature review. YCC and SXZ provided funding acquisition. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Li, X., Lee, CY., Lin, YJ. et al. Moderating effects of teachers’ praise/criticism on the bullying of vulnerable students among teenagers. Curr Psychol 42, 18889–18903 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03032-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03032-y