Prevalence and predictors of staff victimization of students in Kosovo

Abstract

Student victimization by school staff members has important potential consequences for students’ academic achievement and physical and psychological outcomes. Several studies have shown that such victimization exists in multiple contexts and there is considerable variation in prevalence among contexts. This study examined the prevalence of student victimization in public schools by staff members and its relationships with other school-related factors in the context of Kosovo. The sample was designed to represent all students from Grades 6–9 in 13 of Kosovo's 38 municipalities. The sample consisted of 12,040 students from 100 schools, 49.2% of whom were female. They were equally divided between Grades 6 to 9. Overall, more than a quarter of the students reported that a staff member victimized them in the last month. The least prevalent victimization type was sexual—touched or tried to touch you in a sexual manner (2.3%). The most prevalent physical behavior was slapping (15.8%); 12.7% reported being offended or humiliated by a staff member and 8.3% indicated that a staff member cursed them. Boys were victimized significantly more than girls for all types of victimization. The strongest predictors of staff victimization of students were students’ involvement in peer-to-peer victimization and risky behaviors, which were correlated with school climate. Future research should examine each type of staff victimization of students (emotional, physical, sexual) separately and test comprehensive models that include multiple predictors, including contextual and school-level variables and staff characteristics.

Role of Social Support in the Relationship Between Career Self-Efficacy and Psychological Distress Among Young People During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Responses were rated according to their severity, such as from “none of the time” to “all of the time,” where the highest scores indicated a higher level of psychological distress. The scale’s internal stability in the Albanian language was α = .923 and a strong validity in our study, as it accounted for a substantial 60% of the variance, highlighting its powerful ability to accurately measure and capture the psychological distress levels of study participants (Arënliu et al, 2021).…”

Integrating Policy into School Safety Theory and Research

“…Most comparative studies on school safety in psychology have focused on differences in victimization base rates and their emotional impact between students who live in different countries (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). These studies rarely considered and compared the organization of schools, policies, programs, and safety services in these countries (Arënliu et al, 2022; Benbenishty et al, 2019, 2022). This is a significant limitation because these differences in organizational and policy context could explain differences found between student safety outcomes across many different countries.…”