Hoekstra Nathalie A H, van den Berg Yvonne H M, Lansu Tessa A M, Peetz Hannah K, Mainhard M Tim, Cillessen Antonius H N
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Educational Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Aggress Behav. 2024 Aug;50(5):e22173. doi: 10.1002/ab.22173.
Students around the globe still experience bullying daily. Teachers play a key role in supporting victimized students and they could do so using their classroom seating arrangement. Common teacher strategies are to separate victims and bullies and to seat victims close to supportive others, but research has not examined whether these strategies support victims' wellbeing. Therefore, the current study tested an intervention in which victims in experimental classrooms were seated far away from their bullies and next to their best friends, whereas a random seating arrangement was implemented in control classrooms. The underlying reasoning was that victims would experience a sense of safety next to their best friend and to limit bullies' opportunities to harass the victim. The outcomes were classroom comfort, internalizing problems, academic engagement, and victimization frequency. We used a sample of 1746 Dutch upper elementary school students (M = 10.21) of whom 250 students reported to be chronically and frequently victimized (M = 9.96 years). Ethical and practical reasons rendered the conditions similar regarding victims' distances to their bullies. Consequently, the intervention in the end tested the effect of victims sitting next to their best friend. Several mixed-effects models showed that no support was found for the effectiveness of this intervention. Additional exploratory analyses testing the effect of victims' continuous distances to their bullies on their wellbeing also found no effects. These findings suggest that changing victims', bullies', and best friends' seats do not improve victims' classroom wellbeing. Alternative explanations, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed.
全球各地的学生每天仍在遭受欺凌。教师在支持受欺凌学生方面起着关键作用，他们可以通过课堂座位安排来做到这一点。教师常用的策略是将受害者和欺凌者分开，并让受害者坐在支持他们的人旁边，但研究尚未考察这些策略是否有助于受害者的幸福。因此，本研究测试了一种干预措施，在实验教室中，让受害者远离欺凌者并坐在他们最好的朋友旁边，而在对照教室中则采用随机座位安排。其背后的推理是，受害者在最好的朋友旁边会感到安全，同时限制欺凌者骚扰受害者的机会。结果指标包括课堂舒适度、内化问题、学业参与度和受欺凌频率。我们使用了1746名荷兰小学高年级学生（平均年龄M = 10.21岁）的样本，其中250名学生报告长期且频繁遭受欺凌（平均年龄M = 9.96岁）。出于伦理和实际原因，受害者与欺凌者之间的距离条件相似。因此，该干预措施最终测试的是受害者坐在最好的朋友旁边的效果。几个混合效应模型表明，未发现该干预措施有效。额外的探索性分析测试受害者与欺凌者的持续距离对其幸福的影响，也未发现有影响。这些发现表明，改变受害者、欺凌者和最好朋友的座位并不能改善受害者在课堂上的幸福感。本文还讨论了其他解释、未来研究方向和实际意义。
