Teachers’ responses to identity-based social exclusion: Social inequality, identity and diversity at teacher and school level

Description

Background

Social exclusion is a type of bullying that has detrimental outcomes on young people’s emotional well-being as well as academic achievements. For those who are being excluded by peers due to their social background or identity (identity-based exclusion) these events are more common, and associated with serious effects. Interventions by teachers are important in reducing the negative outcomes of school bullying.

The current study investigates mechanism and boundary conditions of teachers as bystanders in such situations with a focus on factors relating to social identity, inequality and diversity. The early findings of UK teacher responses as part of a wider international investigation undertaken in over 15 countries will be presented.

Method

An opportunity sample of ca. 500 individuals in teaching positions in the UK is currently collected. Respondents’ background, minority status, similarity to their students’ background, diversity of student body as well as their schools’ socio-economic background and training provision is assessed. Participants are randomly allocated to identity-based exclusion scenarios amongst students (i.e., gender expression/sexuality, ethnicity, appearance, disability) and asked to indicate their perceptions (e.g., empathy, seriousness) as well as if and how they may respond (e.g., willingness to intervene).

Results

Regression models will examine teachers’ responses to the scenarios whereby underlying mechanism (e.g., empathy) as well as boundary conditions on the teacher (e.g., minority status) as well as school level (e.g., diversity) will be examined. The different scenarios will be compared.

Discussion

The current study will provide insight into the early findings of UK teacher responses as to which individual and system level conditions may contribute to teachers’ responses to identity-based social exclusion amongst students. Practical implications in terms of teacher training and conditions at school level will be discussed.

Period	11 Nov 2023
Event title	Workshop on Aggression
Event type	Conference
Location	London, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International