engleski

Teachers' Competence in Dealing with Bullying

The important aspect in successful dealing with bullying in schools is the teachers' competence. Teachers who feel competent will be able to actively deal with the bullying issue in their school, unlike those who feel incompetent or indifferent, which will in turn make them passive observers. Bullying behaviour may be constrained by a school-based bullying prevention program, peer norms that do not tolerate bullying, or a system of social support (California Department of Education, 2003). The presented data was collected as a part on the evaluation of the anti-bullying program in Croatia. The program has been implemented in 121 school with over 60 000 children, and has been successfully completed in 50 schools by the time of evaluation. The presented findings are based on the data collected prior to the program implementation and evaluation survey administered subsequent to the program implementation. According to the survey findings, teachers significantly less than pupils and parents estimate themselves as indifferent to bullying, while parents, when compared to pupils and teachers, less often estimate teachers as competent and more often as helpless in dealing with bullying in schools. The comparison of pupils, teachers and parents estimates of teachers' competences in dealing with bullying have shown that their estimates differ to some extent (X2=83.229, df=6, p<.001). Compared to teachers, significantly more pupils believe teachers to be indifferent, while significantly more teachers see themselves as helpless. The consequence of feeling either indifferent or helpless is that teachers do not take concrete action to stop the bullying among pupils. The difference between pupils' and teachers' views is that pupils when teachers do not react to bullying understand it as indifference, while teachers more often explain their lack of reaction with the feeling that they cannot do anything about it or change it. Comparison of teachers' perception of their own competence in coping with bullying in the first and in the second data collection indicated that approximately one year ago teachers perceived themselves less competent than they do now. In the second data collection there is a smaller proportion of them who feel confused considering their ability to cope with violence (X2=51.910, df=3, p<.001). Furthermore, the teachers' estimates of the level of knowledge on the issue and competences in dealing with it are in the positive direction on the continuum (M=6.7 ; M=6.7 ; M=7.5), which indicates that teachers believe that they are to some extent informed on the issue and able to deal with it.Self evaluation of their own competences in dealing with bullying in schools shows that most teachers believe themselves to be just partially competent in dealing with the issue of bullying in school. The presented results indicate a need for continuous training and strengthening of teacher's competences in dealing with the issue.

teacher training; bullying; intervention programs

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