Many Teachers are Victimized by Students and the School’s Response Matters for Their Well-Being

Public discourse on school safety often overlooks victimization of teachers by students. Research sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) suggests that:

• Verbal, physical, and psychological abuse by students is a serious and pervasive problem that affects many teachers.
• Victimization can damage teachers' emotional, psychological, and physical well-being.
• The ultimate impact on teacher well-being often depends on the school's reaction.

Led by investigators at The University of Texas at San Antonio and Rochester Institute of Technology, the study investigated:

• Trends and predictors of teacher victimization.
• Negative consequences of victimization.
• Administrator responses to victimization.

Researchers collected data from a representative sample of middle and high school teachers in Texas over four survey waves. Each successive wave comprised respondents from the prior wave. (Teachers who retired during and between waves were not invited to participate in future waves.)

Wave 1: Completed by 1,628 teachers from 130 middle and high schools in 2016.

Wave 2: Completed by 1,239 current teachers and 78 former teachers in 2017, with a retention rate of 81% from wave 1.

Wave 3: Completed by 1,044 current teachers and 57 former teachers in 2018, with a retention rate of 89% from wave 2.

Wave 4: Completed by 890 current teachers and 55 former teachers in 2019, with a retention rate of 91% from wave 3.

The overall study retention rate across the four waves was 58%.

The surveys measured seven types of teacher victimization: theft/vandalism, physical assault, sexual abuse/harassment, verbal abuse, nonphysical-contact aggression, cyberbullying, and in-person bullying.

Most Teachers Were Victimized

Only 17% of teachers who participated in all four survey waves reported no victimization of any type.

Researchers found that the most common types of victimization were verbal abuse (approximately 45%) and nonphysical-contact aggression (ranging from 29% to 35%). Physical victimization was far less prevalent, including physical assault (ranging from 5% to 8%) and sexual abuse/harassment (ranging from 6% to 11%).

At wave 3, 70 out of 1,044 current teachers (7%) reported experiencing physical assault. Almost three-quarters (74%) of those teachers reported their victimization to school officials or police. In 50% of reported cases, school officials responded by questioning or disciplining the students who committed the offenses. School officials reported 21% of those cases to police.

The prevalence of three types of victimization-verbal abuse, cyberbullying, and physical assault-remained stable across all four waves. But the prevalence of four other types of victimization-theft/vandalism, nonphysical-contact aggression, in-person bullying, and sexual abuse/harassment-decreased notably, particularly between waves 3 and 4. Theft/vandalism decreased from 26% at wave 1 to 18% at wave 4, nonphysical-contact aggression decreased from 34% to 29% across the four waves, sexual abuse/harassment decreased from 11% to 6%, and in-person bullying decreased from 17% to 12%.

Exhibit 1: Trend of teacher victimization

Predictors of Verbal Abuse and Noncontact Aggression

The study examined teachers' perceptions of the schools in three categories-administrative support, student disengagement, and school discipline-as potential predictors of verbal abuse. Student disengagement was the only significant predictor of teacher victimization. An increase in teachers' perception of student disengagement was associated with a significantly higher level of verbal abuse experienced.

Teachers with advanced degrees (those beyond a bachelor's degree) were 30% less likely to experience noncontact aggression. Special education teachers experienced noncontact aggression at a rate 1.9 times greater than teachers of general education subjects.

See exhibits 2 and 3 in the report, "A Longitudinal Study of Teacher Victimization at Schools: Prevalence, Predictors, and Negative Consequence," for all the measured predictors of verbal abuse and nonphysical-contact aggression.

Teachers' Physical and Emotional Distress

Of the teachers reporting being victims of theft and or assault, 47% reported at least one kind of physical distress after victimization and 90% reported experiencing at least one type of emotional distress. Of those experiencing physical distress, 12.6% reported four or more symptoms. For those experiencing emotional distress, 26.4% reported experiencing four or more symptoms.

The study team established and measured the following categories of physical and emotional distress resulting from theft and assault victimization at school:

Physical Distress	Emotional Distress
Headaches Trouble sleeping Changes in eating and drinking habits Upset stomach Fatigue Muscle tension/back pain Other physical problems	Worry/anxiety Anger Sadness/depression Vulnerability Violation Reduced trust in students Feeling unsafe

The School Administration's Response Matters

Teachers who reported physical victimization were split on the question of whether they were satisfied with schools' responses:

• 48% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the schools' responses (34% dissatisfied and 14% very dissatisfied).
• 52% were satisfied or very satisfied with the schools' responses (32% satisfied and 20% very satisfied).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the research found that teachers who perceived that the schools handled their victimization complaints well are more likely to express satisfaction with the schools' response to their respective incidents.

Procedural Justice Affects Teachers' Satisfaction with School Responses

When teachers feel good about the overall fairness of school procedures, they are more likely to be satisfied with the school's response to reports they've been victimized by a student. There was a positive correlation between teachers' perceptions of procedural justice within their school community and their satisfaction with both the schools' responses to teachers' complaints and the teachers' own levels of physical and emotional distress.

Surveys in waves 2-4 asked teachers about the handling of their victimization reporting. Researchers assigned levels of procedural justice based on the teacher's perception of treatment quality (for example, the school explained its decisions to the teacher) and decision-making (for example, the school made decisions based on the facts). The analysis examined 638 events recorded over three years.

While 35% of victimized teachers who experienced relatively high procedural justice were satisfied with schools' responses, no teachers who experienced low procedural justice reported satisfaction. Moreover, only 8% of teachers in a high procedural justice group reported dissatisfaction with schools' handling of victimization cases, compared with 96% in a low procedural justice group.

Procedural justice theory suggests people's perceptions of the fairness of treatment by an authority matter more than the specific results obtained. In other words, fair handling (procedural justice) matters more than the specific outcome (distributive justice). When a teacher perceives the school's procedures to be just, they are more likely to be content with the school's response to a report of abuse, and the teacher's distress levels are likely to be lower.

Although procedural justice better predicted teacher satisfaction than distributive justice, fairness of the outcome does matter.Victimized teachers are more likely to be satisfied with the schools' responses when, for example, an offending student apologized.

This new research helps plug a gap in school safety scholarship by answering the question: "How does victimization by students affect teachers over time?" Despite the seriousness of the issue, the researchers were not aware of similar extensive research across multiple time intervals or waves of data collection.

A Need to Take Teacher Victimization Seriously

The researchers found an urgent need for school leaders to:

• Take teacher victimization seriously and implement strategies and programs to address the problem.
• Implement comprehensive counseling programs, particularly those helping teachers who were repeatedly victimized.
• Adopt policies that support teachers' procedural justice and fairness concerns.
• Recognize that handling teacher victimization with fairness and care can significantly reduce victims' distress.

Conclusion

The researchers concluded that the quality of school decision-making and treatment of teacher victimization reports correlates positively with a substantial increase in teachers' satisfaction with schools' responses. The study confirmed that teacher victimization remains a significant problem in our schools. The findings suggest that a school's commitment to a procedural justice environment promotes better teacher victimization outcomes.

All types of measured victimization, except sexual harassment and cyberbullying, were significant predictors of teacher transfers or attrition, further aggravating teacher shortages.[1]

Two additional NIJ research awards will build upon this work and study the topic on a larger scale, among the 50 largest school districts across the nation. See:

• Violence Against Teachers in the 50 Largest U.S. School Districts: Predictors, Consequences, and School Responses
• Violence and Aggression Toward Teachers Among 50 Largest School Districts: A Longitudinal Examination of Risk Factors, Negative Consequences, and School Responses

About This Article

The research described in this article was funded by NIJ awards 2015-CK-BX-0019 and 2017-CK-BX-0010, awarded to The University of Texas at San Antonio. This article is based on the grantee reports, "A Longitudinal Study of Teacher Victimization at Schools: Prevalence, Predictors, andNegative Consequence" (Byongook Moon and John McCluskey 2023) and "Teacher Victimization: Understanding Prevalence, Causation, and Negative Consequences" (Byongook Moon, Roger Enriquez, and John McCluskey 2018).

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