To Örebro University

Background: Studies indicate that teacher victimization is a prominent aspect of school violence. It’s it therefore important to further study what types of student generated victimization teachers are subjected to and which risk factors are related to them in order to work preventive within the school setting.

Objectives: The aim of the present study is to examine individual (gender, years of teaching, age, and ethnicity) and school level predictors (collegial support, school size, school’s anti-bullying strategies, bullying among students and staff) of overall, verbal and physical teacher victimization.

Method: The present study uses data from a Swedish national sample of 1,230 upper secondary school teachers (grade 6-9). The sample consisted of 47.7 % males (n: 587) and 52.3 % (n: 643) females with a mean age of 47 years (sd:11). Data was collected by means of paper-and-pencil questionnaires in 2010.

Results: The results indicate that predictors on both the individual as well as the school level are associated with both overall, verbal, and physical student directed teacher victimization. In sum, older, female teachers with a degree in pedagogics were more likely to experience overall violence from students. Further, collegial support as well as assertive anti-bullying strategies at the school reduced the levels of teacher victimization, whereas bullying amongst students and smaller schools were associated with higher risk of overall teacher victimization.  

Conclusion: This study show that nearly every third teacher had experienced at least one incident of student generated teacher victimization during the last 12 month, emphasizing the importance of the issue. The knowledge from this study can be used to develop strategies and interventions to prevent violence against teachers.