A relationship between teachers’ perceptions and practices within an anti-bullying programme

Abstract

The academic literature suggests that teachers' perceptions of addressing bullying are linked to their actual practices of preventing and intervening in bullying incidents. The current study extends this statement by investigating the relations­hip between teachers' perceptions of, and their practices within, the various components of an anti-bullying programme at school, classroom and indivi­dual levels. The study also aims to investigate if there are differences between teachers' perceptions and practices within an anti-bullying programme and individual characteristics of the teachers. Teachers, working within the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme in Norway (N = 82), completed a standardised online self-administered questionnaire. The results showed that teachers had a slightly more positive perception and put more effort into preventing bully­ing at the individual level in comparison to classroom and school levels of the programme. Primary education teachers generally put more effort into working with the anti-bullying programme than lower secondary education teachers. Female teachers put more effort into organisation of Olweus dass meetings and in following up bullying cases, and they had more positive perceptions of the effectiveness of the anti-bullying programma in comparison to male teachers. Finally, the study indicated a relationship between teachers' perceptions and practices within an anti-bullying programma.