Teachers’ responses to a case of relational bullying: a typology based on teachers’ strategies and reasoning

Abstract Although there is a growing body of research on teachers’ responses to bullying, the question of how teachers decide to respond is still under-researched. The present paper investigates participants’ intended responses to a case of relational bullying, the structure of the proposed intervention, the implicit aims of that intervention and the teachers’ reasoning. The study is based on a qualitative vignette study with open-ended questions. The sample comprised 38 secondary school teachers (58% female, 42% male). Qualitative content analysis and type formation were used to analyse the data. Ten different (sub)types of teachers’ responses were constructed based on patterns in the way teachers responded regarding things they would do, things they would avoid, and their reasoning: the relaxed, the cautious, the investigator, the impartial, the enlightened, the situation-oriented, the principle-oriented, the responsible, the experienced and the personally-affected type. The findings are interpreted in the light of previous research, and practical implications as well as implications for teacher education are discussed.