Citation

Nickerson AB, Fredrick SS, Allen KP, Jenkins LN. J. Sch. Psychol. 2019; 73: 74-88.

Affiliation

Florida State University, United States of America.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Society for the Study of School Psychology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsp.2019.03.002

PMID

30961882

Abstract

The direct and indirect effects of student perceptions of the extent to which social emotional learning (SEL) instruction is provided on bullying at school and student victimization experiences were examined for 2832 public school students. Students in grades 4-12 completed several subscales of the Delaware School Climate Survey (Bear et al., 2016) at a single timepoint to assess their perceptions of the extent to which SEL instruction is used at their school, their own SEL skills, bullying at school, and personal victimization experiences. Structural equation modeling revealed that students' perceptions of SEL instruction were inversely related to their perceptions of bullying at school and students' personal experiences of victimization. Effects were direct and indirect, through students' self-reported perceptions of their SEL skills. Effects were stronger in late elementary and middle school than in high school. The indirect effects of student perceptions of the extent of SEL instruction on perceived bullying at school through students' SEL skills varied as a function of victimization severity. For students with low self-reported victimization, there was a negative relation between student self-reported SEL skills and perceptions of bullying at school. In contrast, for students who reported experiencing high levels of victimization, students' self-reported SEL skills related positively to perceptions of bullying at school; there was no significant relation between SEL skills and perceptions of bullying at school for students who reported moderate levels of victimization. Implications for teachers' inclusion of SEL instruction and its effects on positive youth development are discussed.

Copyright © 2019 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Bullying; Postitive youth development; School climate; Social emotional learning; Victimization