Coping With School Violence Through the Lens of Teachers' Role Breadth

Abstract

Purpose: The current literature's call for a more ecological approach to violence theory, research, and practice stimulated the current study. This model postulates that teachers' willingness to engage in behaviors intended to tackle violence in school as part of their in-role duties (role breadth) will affect school violence. Specifically, the model examined the mediating role of teachers' role breadth in the relationship of the organizational-level factors of participative management and job autonomy with school violence. Method: Data were collected from a survey of 1,512 teachers and their principals at 119 elementary schools in the northern and central parts of Israel. Findings: The structural equation model confirmed the main hypotheses and indicated that for both job autonomy and participative management only the indirect paths (job autonomy—role breadth— school violence; participative management—role breadth—school violence) were significant. These results indicated that role breadth fully mediated the relationship between participative management and job autonomy and school violence. Conclusions: These results carry important practical implications for administrators to help schools cope with the phenomenon of violence. Understanding why teachers choose to broaden their role is important in decreasing school violence. Schools that encourage staff members to see themselves as part of the picture in all aspects of school functioning by involving them in the decision making process, and by providing them with opportunities for discretion, will benefit teachers who believe that student safety is possible and are willing to tackle the phenomenon of violence in schools as part of their in-role duties.

Victimización de Pares y Satisfacción con la Vida: La Influencia del Apoyo de Profesores y Compañeros de la Escuela

“…Según algunos estudios Somech & Oplatka, 2009), el papel del docente es clave en los procesos de socialización de los estudiantes en la escuela. Martínez Antón et al (2007) concluyen que una valoración positiva del alumno por parte del profesor, en relación con su integración social en el aula, se relaciona con una mayor autoestima del alumno.…”

Teacher Role Breadth and its Relationship to Student-Reported Teacher Support

“…Of direct relevance to this study, Somech and Oplatka (2009) illustrated the salience of role definition as a predictor variable in their study of teachers' responses to school violence. They found that the breadth of teachers' role definition-specifically, the degree to which they saw themselves as responsible for addressing violence in the school and in the classroom (e.g., intervening in violent events, incorporating violence prevention into teaching practice and curriculum)-was associated with variation in levels of student violence at their schools.…”

“…The High School Journal -April/May 2013 366 measures reflecting these dimensions included a social-emotional support definition (nine items, e.g., "I see advisory as a place where students should get whatever kind of support they need to make it through school"), a life skills support definition (four items, e.g., "I see advisory as a place where students should develop life skills"), and an academic definition (2 items, e.g., "I see advisory as a place where students should focus on academics"). Drawing upon the logic of the prior work on role breadth (Somech & Oplatka, 2009), we defined a teacher as having a high degree of role breadth if she fell into the top quartile of two or more of the three dimensions as identified by our factor analysis. Survey items are provided in Appendix 1.…”

El papel mediador de la capacitación docente en el manejo de la violencia escolar sobre el bienestar social de profesores

“…En este estudio se consideran comportamientos de Macarena Morales, Verónica López, M. Ángeles Bilbao, Boris Villalobos, Denise Oyarzún, Dayana Olavarría, Sebastián Ortiz, Claudia Carrasco y Paula Ascorra gravedad el uso de armas u objetos para herir, y agresiones menos graves como empujar a un compañero (Somech y Oplatka, 2009). También incluye acciones que produzcan daño emocional o psicológico, como el proferir insultos, el hablar mal de otros y las amenazas verbales (Blaya, 2003).…”

“…La relevancia de ello radica en que los profesores son un agente importante en los procesos de socialización de los estudiantes en la escuela (Somech y Oplatka, 2009) y en que gran parte de los programas de prevención de la violencia consideran a los profesores en roles críticos, tales como en la creación de ambientes apropiados y en la promoción de cambios en las actitudes y comportamientos agresivos de sus estudiantes (Ozer, 2006). No obstante, en una revisión que presentan Ávalos, Cavada, Pardo y Sotomayor (2010) se indica que los docentes se sienten principalmente afectados por la violencia en sus escuelas, en la medida que se sienten poco preparados para enfrentarla.…”