Research has indicated that teachers have a vital role in implementing effective anti-bullying strategies, as well as in supporting children who are experiencing bullying. Research has highlighted how teachers deal with bullying, including the positive aspects and outcomes of teacher support. However, few studies have examined how bullied children understand and experience this support from their teachers. Also, there is a lack of theoretical approaches aimed at understanding this vital relationship. Social support has been proven an important factor for handling and dealing with different kinds of stressors. However little research has studied how social support, and especially social support from teachers, may influence bullied children’s well-being. This aim of this paper presentation is to explore possible influences of social support from teachers on bullied children’s health and to understand consequences of bullying by exploring how victims of bullying experience varying forms of social recognition by their teachers, during and after episodes of bullying victimization.
The presentation is based on results from a Swedish dissertation. The dissertation included questionnaire data from a one-year longitudinal study of Swedish pupils included 3,345 school-aged children, shorter qualitative written stories and in-depth interviews with former victims of bullying. The results indicate the importance of teacher support and recognition for children during and after episodes of bullying victimization. The possible positive aspects of teacher-pupil relation for bullied children will be discussed in order to be able to offer more targeted support for those schoolchildren who are, or have been subjected to bullying.