Prevalence and Correlates of Bullying by Teachers

Teacher victimization has been found to have a negative impact on students’ academic engagement, motivation and increased behavioral issues. However, relatively little work has examined longer term consequences of victimization by teachers. The current study was a retrospective exploratory study of 271 undergraduates focused on teacher victimization prevalence in elementary and secondary school on academic outcomes, peer relationships, self-esteem, and general psychosocial distress in college. Students who reported experiencing teacher victimization were asked to provide a brief narrative description of a typical event to enhance validity. Overall, 43% of students reported experiencing at least one incidence of bullying by a teacher, and 82% of the narratives describing those experiences were coded as meeting criteria for teacher victimization. Teacher victimization correlated with negative academic effects, poorer adjustment to college, psychosocial distress, low self-esteem, peer victimization and amotivation. When individuals report being victimized by teachers but have little experience being victimized by peers, this appears to have a negative effect on their overall motivation in college.