A Systematic Review of the Prevalence and Correlates of Emotional Violence by Teachers

Reducing Violent Discipline by Teachers: a Matched Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Tanzanian Public Primary Schools

Violent discipline in schools infringes on children's rights and is associated with harmful developmental consequences for students. This calls for effective intervention programs, particularly in countries with high prevalence of violent discipline in schools. This study tested the effectiveness of the preventative intervention Interaction Competencies with Children-for Teachers (ICC-T) in reducing violent discipline by teachers in a two-arm matched cluster-randomized controlled trial. The sample comprised teachers (n = 173, 53.7% female) and students (n = 914, 50.5% girls) from 12 public primary schools from six regions in Tanzania. Teacher physical and emotional violent discipline reported by teachers and students was assessed before and six to eight and a half months after the intervention. The schools were randomly allocated to either intervention (6; ICC-T) or control condition (6; no intervention). Teachers were not blinded. Students and research assistants conducting the follow-up assessment were blinded. A series of multivariate multilevel models revealed significant time*intervention effects on physical violent discipline reported by teachers and students and teachers' favorable attitudes towards physical violent discipline, FDRs < .05. In addition, we found a spill-over effect on peer-to-peer violence and students' externalizing, ps < .05. There were no significant time*intervention effects either on emotional violent discipline, FDRs > .05, teachers' favorable attitudes towards emotional violent discipline or on student's internalizing problems and academic performance, ps > .05. Our results provide further evidence that ICC-T may positively change teachers' violent disciplining behavior and their attitudes towards violent discipline. ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03893851.

Externalizing problems mediate the relation between teacher and peer violence and lower school performance

BACKGROUND

The association between children's exposure to family violence and poor academic outcomes is well-established. Less is known about how exposure to violence in the school context, i.e., by teachers and by peers, affects academic functioning. Moreover, the role of children's mental health problems in this link has hardly been examined.

OBJECTIVES

We examined direct and indirect associations between children's experiences of violence by teachers and peers and children's mental health and school functioning while controlling for children's experiences of parental violence.

PARTICIPANTS

Using a multistage random sampling approach, we obtained a representative sample of 914 students (50.5 % girls, M_age = 12.58 years) from 12 primary schools in Tanzania.

METHODS

In structured interviews, students' experiences of violence and mental health problems were assessed. Students' academic performance and absenteeism were documented using school records. Associations were examined using structural equation modeling.

RESULTS

Experiences of more teacher and peer violence were each significantly associated with higher externalizing problems (teachers: β = 0.27 [95 %-CI: 0.12, 0.47]; peers: β = 0.17, [95 %-CI: 0.07, 0.32]). Higher externalizing problems were significantly associated with poorer academic performance (β = -0.13, [95 %-CI: -0.23, -0.02]), implying significant indirect associations between students' experiences of teacher violence (β = -0.04, [95 %-CI: -0.08, -0.01]) and peer violence (β = -0.02, [95 %-CI: -0.05, -0.01]) and their academic performance via externalizing problems.

CONCLUSION

Exposure to violence at school may impair children's academic performance indirectly by increasing attention and behaviour problems. Further investigations in longitudinal studies and implementation of interventions to reduce violence in schools are indicated.