The effects of general interpersonal and bullying-specific teacher behaviors on pupils' bullying behaviors at school

Bullying is a problem in many schools around the world. It is seen as an unwanted phenomenon in education and in many contexts the reduction of bullying is a target of national and local education policy. In practice, the extent to which bullying occurs differs widely across classrooms. Part of these differences may be explained by teachers' management of bullying. The goal of the present study was to combine two perspectives on teacher behavior to identify their impact on pupils' bullying behavior at school, namely teachers' bullying-specific and their general interpersonal behaviors. Data were collected by means of questionnaires from 33 upper-grade primary school teachers and their 784 pupils. Results of multilevel regression analyses showed that teachers' bullying-specific and general interpersonal behaviors independently contributed to pupils' bullying behavior. Lower levels of bullying were established when teachers were less likely to discipline the bully, and showed more interpersonal behaviors with high levels of control and closeness, and less interpersonal behaviors with low levels of control and closeness. These findings suggest that teachers' bullying-specific and general interpersonal behaviors are two different pathways through which teachers can manage bullying. This underlines the need of taking teacher's strengths into account in designing anti-bullying programs.