Bullying and Teacher-Student Relationship: Elementary Education Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

With the purpose of investigating associations between bullying and teacher-students relationship, 443 public schools students from fourth to ninth grades, with a mean age of 12.25 years (SD = 2.21) answered two self-report measures. Instruments used were the Bullying Questionnaire, which identifies roles, contexts and forms of this aggression, and the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale, which assesses affinity and conflict with teachers, both applied in a classroom setting. A higher prevalence of bullying was found; nearly 20% of the students were victimized. These aggressions take place most often in classrooms. Bullies' perceptions of their relationships with teachers were poorer than those of their peers. The bullying and teacher-student relationship variables were not distributed evenly in the school sample under study. Results showed that interventions should be centered on teachers' roles in the classroom and must be tailored to the needs of each specific grade.