The teacher plays an important role in the management of classroom bullying ( Yoon and Bauman, 2014 ). Therefore, understanding and fostering teachers’ characteristics able to predict successful responses to bullying and victimization is a priority for prevention programs. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the association between the teacher’s individual characteristics, such as her/his competence in regard to the phenomenon, job satisfaction, and self-efficacy, and the school level of bullying/victimization was mediated by the teacher’s intervention when an episode of bullying occurred. The study included 120 teachers (17.5% boys; 79.2% girls), between the ages of 25 and 66 (mean age = 48.21; SD = 9.22), and 1,056 students (40.3% boys; 59.6% girls), between the ages of 11 and 17 (mean age = 13.09; SD = 1.46). A total of 57% of the students were attending secondary middle school and 42.2% were in secondary high school. Path analyses showed that for perpetrated behaviors, teachers’ competence on bullying affects students report of bullying through a higher likelihood of teachers’ intervention after a bullying episode occurred. The indirect effect resulted significant. Lower levels of bullying and victimization were associated with teacher job satisfaction, thus indicating how professional fulfillment can influence the classroom climate. The model for victimization was the same, except that the indirect path was not significant. Findings are discussed in terms of teachers’ involvement in bullying intervention and prevention.

For many adolescents, the COVID-19 pandemic represents a uniquely challenging period, and concerns have been raised about whether COVID-19-related stress may increase the risk for self-injurious behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the impact of pre-existing vulnerabilities on the occurrence and frequency of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) through COVID-19-related stress, and whether the impact of COVID-19-related stress on NSSI was buffered by the perceived social support during the pandemic. Participants were 1061 adolescents (52.40% females; Mage = 15.49 years, SD = 0.76) from a two-wave longitudinal study, which included assessments before the COVID-19 onset and one year later the declaration of the pandemic. Path analyses showed that adolescents with a prior history of NSSI, higher levels of internalizing symptoms, and poor regulatory emotional self-efficacy before the COVID-19 pandemic reported higher levels of COVID-19-related stress which in turn increased their risk to engage in NSSI. Besides, the findings did not support the role of social support as a moderator of the association between COVID-19 related stress and the occurrence/frequency of NSSI. These findings suggest that enhanced stress perception may serve as a key pathway for the continuation and development of NSSI among vulnerable adolescents facing adverse life events.

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Background: Peer problems have emerged as important predictors of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) development during adolescence. However, the possibility that adolescents who engage in NSSI may, in turn, be at increased risk for experiencing difficulties with their peers has rarely been examined. This study investigated the reciprocal associations between peer problems (e.g. peer victimization, friendship stress and loneliness) and NSSI throughout adolescence, distinguishing between-and within-person effects. Method: Participants were 866 adolescents (54.5% females; M age = 13.12 years, SD = 0.78), who took part in six waves of data collection. Adolescents completed self-report measures of NSSI, friendship stress and loneliness and they took part in a peer nomination procedure to assess peer victimization. Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPMs) were used to estimate within-person crosslagged effects between each peer problem and NSSI from Grade 7 to 12. Results: After accounting for between-person associations between peer problems and NSSI, results indicated that higher-than-usual levels of NSSI predicted higher-than-usual levels of adolescents' own friendship stress, loneliness and peer victimization at the subsequent time point. Yet, sensitivity analyses revealed that most of these effects were strongly attenuated and explained by within-person fluctuations in depressive symptoms. No within-person cross-lagged effects from peer problems to NSSI were found. Conclusions: Findings highlight that the associations between peer problems (i.e. friendship stress, loneliness) and NSSI may be largely explained by shared underlying factors; yet, some evidence also suggests that NSSI engagement may increase adolescents' risk to experience difficulties in the relationships with their peers, in part via increases in depressive symptoms.