Teacher–student relationships and adolescents' classroom incivility: A moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and negative coping style

Abstract

The current study examined whether moral disengagement would mediate the association between adolescents' teacher–student relationships and classroom incivility and sex and age differences in this mediation model. We also examined whether the mediating effect of moral disengagement would be moderated by negative coping styles. Participants comprised 2646 Chinese students (mean age = 13.85 years, SD = 1.45). Results indicated that teacher–student relationships were significantly and negatively associated with adolescents' classroom incivility and moral disengagement mediated this association. Furthermore, this mediating process differed between males and females as well as early and middle adolescents. Specifically, males were more likely to use moral disengagement strategies to engage in classroom incivility than females. Age moderated the association between teacher–student relationships and moral disengagement as well as moral disengagement and classroom incivility, and these two associations became stronger for early adolescents than for middle adolescents. Moreover, negative coping styles moderated the association between teacher–student relationships and classroom incivility and the association between moral disengagement and classroom incivility. The direct association between teacher–student relationships and classroom incivility became nonsignificant for adolescents with high negative coping styles. The study contributes to clarifying the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying the effect of teacher–student relationships on adolescents' classroom incivility.

A short-term longitudinal study on the development of moral disengagement among schoolchildren: the role of collective moral disengagement, authoritative teaching, and student-teacher relationship quality

“…In our study, students with more negative, less supportive, and less caring student-teacher relationships were more likely to exhibit elevated levels of moral disengagement in the sixth grade, regardless of their initial level of moral disengagement. This result expands upon previous cross-sectional findings demonstrating a positive link between student-teacher relationships and moral disengagement ( Gao et al, 2024 ) that also incorporate two time points within a longitudinal design.…”

“…Furthermore, moral disengagement has been tested as a mediator between different school factors (e.g., school climate, teachers’ responses to bullying, student–student relationships) and bullying and aggression (e.g., Campaert et al, 2017 ; Ivaniushina and Alexandrov, 2022 ; Gao et al, 2023 ), suggesting that school factors may influence students’ moral disengagement. Concerning student-teacher relationships, one recent cross-sectional study examined whether moral disengagement mediated the association between student-teacher relationship quality and classroom incivility ( Gao et al, 2024 ). Classroom incivility here refers to student behaviors that negatively impact the learning environment, encompassing everything from minor disturbances to physical violence.…”

“…The findings from this study showed that students with poorer student-teacher relationship quality scored also higher in moral disengagement, which in turn was linked to more classroom incivility behaviors. The authors suggest that a warm, caring, and supportive teacher may model positive communication patterns and behaviors, possibly helping students to “respect and understand others, strengthen their moral and rule constraints, and thereby reduce their levels of moral disengagement” ( Gao et al, 2024 , p. 508). Nevertheless, the cross-sectional design did not allow conclusions about the directionalities of these associations.…”

“…The present study aimed to examine whether collective moral disengagement and authoritative teaching at the classroom level and student-teacher relationship quality at the individual level predicted individual moral disengagement among pre-adolescent students 1 year later. Given that previous studies suggest there are gender differences in moral disengagement ( Caravita et al, 2012 ; Thornberg et al, 2023 ; Gao et al, 2024 ), and considering that a student’s tendency to morally disengage may vary due to differing socialization practices across cultures ( Bussey, 2020 ), we included gender and immigrant background as control variables, along with the initial level of moral disengagement. Because Bandura (2016) argues that moral disengagement is “manifested differently depending on the sphere of activity” (p. 26), we delimited classroom collective moral disengagement and students’ moral disengagement in this study to the activity of peer aggression, including bullying and other forms of mean, unwanted or harmful behaviors toward peers.…”

“…With reference to research showing that greater student-teacher relationship quality decreases the risk of bullying perpetration ( ten Bokkel et al, 2023 ) and cross-sectional studies showing a negative correlation between student-teacher relationship quality and moral disengagement ( Sjögren et al, 2021b ; Gao et al, 2024 ), we hypothesized that greater student-teacher relationship quality at the student level would predict less moral disengagement 1 year later ( Hypothesis 3 ).…”