Student and teacher responses to violence in school: The divergent views of bullies,victims,and bully-victims

Abstract

School bullying is a worldwide worrisome phenomenon that occurs within a broad context in which pupils and teachers can either reinforce or undermine violent behavior through interaction. Based on a nationally representative sample of students in Israel, this study examined patterns in student perceptions of student and teacher responses to school violence and differences in perceptions according to bully/victim participation (bullies, victims, bully-victims, and not involved). Student perceptions of responses to school violence, safety, not attending school due to fear of violence, and students’ sense of the severity of the violence problem in their school were examined. Findings indicated students and teachers did not actively accelerate violent episodes, but were reluctant to respond positively by intervening to stop violence. Positive responses to violence were related to positive school experiences among students. Students who were not involved in school bullying had the best perceptions of positive responses to violence. However, significant differences were not found among the three other groups (bullies, victims, and bully-victims). Findings suggested any participation in school violence involves a significant decrease in perceptions of positive responses. The importance of promoting a safe school environment and positive climate through increased awareness, involvement and supervision, and clear rules and strong norms against violence is discussed.

Keywords

Bullying Israel school climate school experience student responses to violence teacher responses to violence victimization

School violence is a pervasive and worrisome social problem throughout the world––the US (Robers, Zhang, & Truman, 2012), Australia (Murray-Harvey & Slee, 2010), Asia (Chen & Astor, 2012), the Middle East (Khoury-Kassabri, Astor, & Benbenishty, 2009), Africa (Liang, Flisher, & Lombard, 2007), and Europe (Smith, 2002). One form of school violence is bullying. Bullying has been formally defined as a student or a group of students who repeatedly harass a victim verbally or physically without provocation (Furlong, Chung, Bates, & Morisson, 1995; Smith & Brain, 2000; Smith & Sharp, 1994). The more traditional definition requires an imbalance of power in the relationship between the bully and the victim, and that the bullying behavior occurs repeatedly (Juvonen & Graham, 2001; Olweus, 1993). Some scholars have argued that school bullying is based on social relationships within a group (Andreou & Metallidou, 2004; Cheng, Chen, Ho, & Cheng, 2011; Craig, Pepler, & Blais, 2007; Menesini, Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003; Richard, Schneider, & Mallet, 2012; Salmivalli, 2010) and that pupils have the potential to assume a helpful role in addressing bullying problems and intervening on behalf of the victim. Adults also play a significant role in this process by giving students appropriate skills and support (Cowie, 2000). Nevertheless, school staff, including psychologists, social workers, and teachers, are often challenged to respond appropriately to bullying due to little knowledge about how the group is involved in the bullying behavior.

School bullying has been associated with poor social, emotional, psychological, and academic outcomes for students directly involved in violence, as well as bystanders of violent episodes at school (Nabuzoka, Rønning, & Handegård, 2009; Nishina & Juvonen, 2005; Rivers, Poteat, Noret, & Ashurst, 2009; Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010; Unnever, 2005). Thus, violence potentially affects a large proportion of students at any given school, if bystanders, bullies, and victims are included.

Students typically fall into four groups related to school bullying: Bullies, victims, bully-victims (students who hold the dual role of aggressors and victims of bullying), and students who are not involved in bullying at school (e.g. Berkowitz & Benbenishty, 2012; Khoury-Kassabri, 2009; Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). These studies have examined the social, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of students according to their bullying group membership; nevertheless, little is known about how these students perceive responses to violence in their school.

Most studies on school violence have considered bullying as interactions between perpetrators and victims, focusing on the characteristics of the individual student participants (e.g. Haynie et al., 2001; Unnever, 2005). Similarly, most intervention programs dealing with aggressive behavior have focused on changing the characteristics unique to ‘at-risk’ students and have failed to address the larger social context, including the school environment (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). However, school violence should be understood based on the broader social context in which it occurs. First, bullying often occurs when bystanders are present (Lynn Hawkins, Pepler, & Craig, 2001). Second, research indicated that the social, emotional, and affective qualities of a school environment (school climate) was associated with school violence and bullying (e.g. Eliot, Cornell, Gregory, & Fan, 2010; Kitsantas, Ware, & Martinez-Arias, 2004). The robust literature on school climate has shown how different aspects of school context, such as school policy against violence, student-teacher relationships, and peer relationships, can moderate or mediate the levels of violence and victimization in school (Eliot et al., 2010; Swearer et al., 2010). An important component of school climate is how the staff and students respond to school violence and whether these responses instigate, maintain, or exacerbate bullying (Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000; Gottfredson, Gottfredson, Payne, & Gottfredson, 2005; Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 1996).These studies described violence in a broader context in which the pupils and teachers can either reinforce or undermine violent behavior through interaction. School climate and staff responses to violence may contribute to student victimization and subsequent feelings that affect their school experience in profound ways (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). Nevertheless, there is little empirical evidence of the degree to which school social dynamics contribute to school violence, beyond the contribution of the single perpetrator or victim.

Hence, this study examined patterns in student perceptions of student and teacher responses to school violence. The study further examined these patterns at the school level, as well as how these patterns relate to student perceptions of two aspects of school climate (school violence and safety), students’ not attending school due to fear of violence, and students’ sense of the severity of the violence problem in their school. These subjective variables reflected how students interpret experiences in the school environment. Finally, the study examined differences in student perceptions of responses to violence among bullies, victims, bully-victims and students not actively involved in school violence.

Student responses to violence at school

Previous findings conducted in Canada suggest that peers are present during at least 80% of bullying episodes, in roles ranging from active participants to passive onlookers (Atlas & Pepler, 1998; Craig & Pepler, 1995; O’Connell, Pepler, & Craig, 1999). Even students not present are usually aware of bullying, because bullying by definition happens repeatedly over a period of time (Smith & Brain, 2000). Student responses to bullying at school are diverse. Children may act as passive bystanders. They may also try to intervene to defend the victim, and act as an ‘upstander’ who directly or indirectly confronts the bullying behavior (Cohen, 2006). Previous study conducted in the Netherlands indicated bystanders as failing to take supportive action for fear of becoming victims, fear of reprisal, or simply because they may not know how to react (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005).

In a study conducted in the UK on student attitudes toward school bullying, about half of middle school pupils reported that they would try to help the victim, compared to one-third of secondary school pupils (Whitney & Smith, 1993). In Finland, Salmivalli et al. (1996) found that the vast majority of students reported participating in bullying to some degree; however, only 17% of children reported defending a victim of bullying. Ignoring or not getting involved in bullying may reflect a fear of being victimized after siding with the victim (Hazler, 1996; Unnever & Cornell, 2004). Children may provide positive feedback to perpetrators just by standing and watching the bully’s dominance play out, as bullies may interpret this inaction as tacit approval of their aggressive behavior (Craig et al., 2000).

Other secondary roles of students that incorporate a degree of observer and bystander behavior have been identified. Observations of interactions on the schoolyard revealed that children take a more active role when they witness bullying at school, especially if they align with, encourage, defer to, and even join perpetrators in bullying (Menesini et al., 2003; Richard et al., 2012; Salmivalli et al., 1996). In fact some scholars view bystander as an active and involved participant in the social architecture of school violence rather than a passive witness (Twemlow, Fongay, & Sacco, 2004).

Students’ personal characteristics which may influence their response to violent episodes at school, such as age or gender, have been documented in Finland (Salmivalli et al., 1996), Canada (O’Connell et al., 1999), Italy and England (Menesini et al., 1997), and the US (Oh & Hazler, 2009; Tisak & Tisak, 1996).

Other group-related bystanders’ characteristic such as social status was also related to responsiveness to school bullying. Bystanders affiliated with popular peer groups or with higher social status were more likely to intervene on behalf of the victim, compared to others (Salmivalli et al., 1996). Bystanding behavior was also related to bully-victim status; in a study conducted in the US, bullies and bully-victims tended to assist or reinforce bullying as bystanders (Oh & Hazler, 2009).

Effective and critical ways for students to intervene in bullying situations at school include seeking help from adults, because staff members cannot offer help or intervene if they are unaware that a student is being victimized (Craig et al., 2000; Smith, Talamelli, Cowie, Naylor, & Chauhan, 2004). However, students may not report school bullying to school staff out of fear of retaliation or peer rejection for turning in other students.

Studies that explored student responses to bullying have used either naturalistic observations of student interactions on school grounds (e.g. Lynn Hawkins et al., 2001; Salmivalli et al., 1996) or self-reported questionnaires asking students how they would react to bullying (e.g. Whitney & Smith, 1993). Although these findings offered some insight into children’s personal attitudes toward bullying and their actual responses to school bullying, they did not indicate children’s overall perceptions of their school environment as reflected by their thoughts on what usually happens in their school.

Teacher responses to violence at school

Teachers may believe they often intervene in bullying situations; however, observational research conducted in Canada has shown teachers intercede in only 15% to 18% of classroom and playground bullying episodes (Craig et al., 2000). Teachers are more privy to bullying when it occurs inside the classroom. Nevertheless, the likelihood of adult intervention in bullying interactions may be more limited in the unstructured, free-ranging, loosely supervised playground context (Pellegrini, 1998). Moreover, teachers do not always recognize bullying when they see it (Olweus, 1993).

Staff responses usually reflect school policy against violence, which is known to have a critical influence on different aspects of a school’s climate, such as student feelings of safety and fear of going to school (e.g. Astor, Benbenishty, Vinokur, & Zeira, 2006; Astor, Benbenishty, Zeira, & Vinokur, 2002). In the US, school policy against violence has been found to be an effective solution for school violence and supportive of student feelings of safety when the policy is balanced and not too rigid (Mayer, Mullens, Moore, & Ralph, 2000; Way, 2011). A school atmosphere with very strict rules does not support a positive school climate, nor does it enhance supportive student-teacher relationships, which are critical to student feelings of safety at school (Astor, Meyer, & Pitner, 2001; Kitsantas et al., 2004). Previous studies have found that students respond positively toward school violence policies that employ a broad range of rewards and sanctions for students and are based on flexibility and responsiveness to student behavior (Gottfredson et al., 2002). Flexible responses were found to be more effective in dealing with school violence, compared to strict responses that employ immediate and severe punishments and can increase the overall level of violence in the school (Farmer, 1999).

Studying how students perceive teacher responses to bullying at school is important for several reasons. First, school personnel’s perceptions of violence in their school may not accurately reflect reality. For example, a previous study conducted in the US found that adults in the school community (school personnel and parents/guardians) typically believe that bullying and social violence are ‘mild’ to ‘moderately severe’ problems, whereas students consistently report that it is a ‘severe’ problem (Cohen, 2006). Therefore, asking students––who are aware of violence in their school even when they are not physically present when violence occurs––may be a more reliable source of information for teachers. Second, the literature on school climate has emphasized the importance of staff responses to violent events, which influence student feelings of safety and fear of violence at school (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). Therefore, student perceptions of their teachers’ responses to violence would be strong indicators of their feelings of safety and fear at school.

School climate

The School climate refers to a school’s norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching, learning and leadership practices, and organizational structures (National School Climate Council [NSCC], 2007). A positive school climate is one in which students feel safe, have caring relationships with peers and adults, a sense of belonging and connectedness, meaningful participation in school policies, disapproval of risky behaviors among peers, and a sense that peers and school staff are concerned about them (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009; Osher, Dwyer, Jimerson, & Brown, 2012).

Previous study conducted in the US demonstrated students feel unsafe in unsupervised areas of the school (Astor et al., 2001). Such findings indicate that teacher awareness and supervision can significantly contribute to student feelings of safety. A positive school climate promotes greater awareness of violence among teachers (Cohen & Geier, 2010), with a wide range of balanced and fair school policies against violence (Pellerin, 2000). Therefore, this study hypothesized that student perceptions of positive student and teacher responses to school bullying would be related to greater feelings of safety and lower levels of school violence.

Further, school climate refers to the quality and character of school life and is based on patterns of school life experiences (NSCC, 2007). A school’s climate alleviates or subdues violence and risky behavior (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005; Kitsantas et al., 2004; Ripski & Gregory, 2009). Because all school participants, including students and teachers, share similar experiences within the school’s climate, it is reasonable to assume they would express the same levels of concern and awareness of violence. Therefore, the study hypothesized a positive relationship between student and teacher responses to school violence at the school level.

Not attending school due to fear of violence

A strong emotional reaction to school violence is the decision to skip school because of fear of being bullied (Nansel et al., 2001). Studies indicated not attending school due to fear was directly related to being victimized (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005; Dupper & Meyer-Adams, 2002; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Because positive student and teacher responses to violence can decrease victimization at school, the study hypothesized that positive responses would be related to lower levels of non-attendance due to fear.

Assessment of the school’s violence problem

Judgement of a school’s overall violence problem may originate in cognitive information processes, such as the degree to which students identify with their school’s policy; for example, their acceptance of measures taken by school officials to deal with violence (Dwyer, Osher, & Hoffman, 2000). Therefore, student assessments of the violence problem in their school may be affected by what students witness on school grounds, such as violent episodes and subsequent responses. Previous Israeli research found student judgement of the violence problem was mainly associated with perceptions of risky peer behavior and the effectiveness of staff responses to violence (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). Therefore, the study hypothesized that positive student and teacher responses to violence would be related to lower assessments of school violence as a problem.

Bullies, victims and bully victims

Studies have identified salient characteristics of victims and bullies. Bullies have been described as having aggressive behavior profiles combined with physical strength, demonstrating poorer psychosocial functioning than other students and exhibiting little anxiety or insecurity due to their strength and control over others (Haynie et al., 2001). As bullies frequently engage in bullying at school, this study assumed they would have negative perceptions of student and teacher responses to violence.

Victims of bullying are passive, anxious, weak, and unpopular (Olweus, 1993). They experience various internalizing problems (Isaacs, Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2008; Nansel et al., 2001). Because they are frequent targets of bullying, feel unprotected, and suffer great insecurity as a result, it is reasonable to assume that victims of bullying feel that violence does not receive adequate attention in their school. They may feel that teachers frequently overlook violence, and that their peers tend to ignore their victimization. Because bullying is a repetitive interaction (Smith & Brain, 2000) and a significant number of victims have been identified as repeat victims (Smith et al., 2004), they may also feel that teacher and peer responses to violence at school are not effective. However, previous studies have found the most negative outcomes among those students who are victimized and also show aggressive behavior as bullies.

Being a bully-victim was associated with negative relationships with teachers (Olweus, 1993) and a higher risk of maltreatment by staff (Khoury-Kassabri, 2009). These students experience adjustment problems, are disliked by their peers, have lower grades, and present various symptoms of depression and anxiety. These signs all appear more frequently among bully-victims than victims, bullies, and students not involved in violence (Hanish & Guerra, 2004; Ma, 2001; Unnever, 2005). Further, in Israel bully-victims reported the lowest levels of teacher support and feelings of security, and missed school because of fear significantly more often than students in the other categories (Berkowitz & Benbenishty, 2012). Therefore, the study hypothesized bully-victims would have the least positive perceptions of student and teacher responses to violence at school.

Method

This study was part of a large national survey of school violence conducted in Israel during Spring 2005 (Benbenishty, Khoury-Kassabri, & Astor, 2006) among 4th- to 11th-grade students. Because bullying questions were not asked in elementary schools, the current study only used data for students in 7th to 11th grades. The survey featured a structured, anonymous, self-report questionnaire in which students reported their victimization and bullying of others, and gave subjective assessments of their safety, school intervention, and school climate. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and by the head scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Education.

Sample

The overall sample of the study was designed to represent all students in grades 7–11 in the official public school system supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Education (because private schools are a very small minority of Israeli schools, the sample thus represents most Israeli students). The probability sampling method was a nonproportional, two-stage stratified cluster sample. The strata were (a) school level (primary: 4th–6th grade; junior high school: 7th–9th grade; and high school: 10th–11th grade); and (b) ethnic or religious group (Jewish nonreligious, Jewish religious, Arab Bedouin, Arab Druze, and other Arab). In the first stage, schools were randomly selected from the sampling frame according to their appropriate strata. Control variables were number of students in the school and the socioeconomic index of students’ families. In the second stage, two classes in each of the selected schools were randomly selected from two different grade levels. The overall sample consisted of 27,316 students from 526 schools. The current study included 16,604 students from 324 secondary schools.

Participants were all students who attended sampled classes during the time of the survey and gave their informed consent and permission. The response level was about 95%. The school sample was weighted to represent all Israeli students, with weights normalized so that significance tests could be used. All analyses were conducted with normalized weighted data.

Measurement

Students were given a structured anonymous self-report questionnaire in either Hebrew or Arabic. The instrument was based on questionnaires used during the California School Climate Survey developed by Furlong et al. (1995), used in similar research (Astor, Behre, Wallace, & Fravil, 1998), and modified by others (Benbenishty, 2003; Benbenishty, Zeira, & Astor, 2000) to make questions culturally relevant for Israel. The complete questionnaire and its psychometric properties were described in detail elsewhere (e.g. Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). Only components of the questionnaire included in this study are reported here.

Teacher responses to fighting at school

Students were asked how true they felt 14 statements describing teacher responses to student fights on school grounds were. Responses were rated on a three-point scale: 0 = usually right; 1 = a little right and a little not right; 2 = usually not right. Factor analysis with varimax rotation and a fixed number of two factors yielded two patterns of teacher responses: positive responses (Cronbach’s α = 0.753; N = 8) and negative responses (Cronbach’s α = 0.609; N = 5). Positive teacher responses were responses that reduced bullying, whereas negative responses did not reduce bullying or exacerbated violent episodes.

Student responses to fighting at school

Students were asked how true they felt eight statements describing other students’ responses to student fighting at school were. An exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded two factors (eigenvalue > 1): positive student responses (Cronbach’s α = 0.779; N = 4), and negative student responses (Cronbach’s α = 0.604; N = 4). Positive and negative student responses reflected similar outcomes as described above.

School climate

Students were asked to rate their level of agreement (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree) with a series of statements describing school climate in two dimensions: (a) safety (Cronbach’s α = 0.754), including six questions about student feelings of security at school and (b) school violence (Cronbach’s α = 0.714), including three items measuring student perceptions of violence in their school. Scale indexes were computed for every series of statements or questions as the mean of items.

Non-attendance because of fear of violence

Students were asked how many times during the last month they had missed school because of fear of being hurt by somebody at or on their way to or from school. Responses were rated on a four-point scale: 1 = never; 2 = once; 3 = twice; 4 = three or more times.

Assessment of the school’s violence problem

Students were asked to evaluate the magnitude of the school violence problem in their school. Responses were ranked on a five-point scale (1 = very minor or no problem; 2 = minor problem; 3 = medium problem; 4 = major problem; 5 = very major problem).

Bullying and victimization to bullying

Students were asked how often they were bullied and bullied others in school that year. Responses were rated on a five-point scale: 1 = not at all; 2 = once or twice; 3 = sometimes; 4 = about once a week; and 5 = several times a week. Four bully/victim categories were created: bully, victim, bully–victim, and not involved in any bullying (Table 4; See Supplemental Materials).

Data analysis

Correlations were run between student reports of teacher and student responses to fighting at school, school climate factors (safety, school violence), non-attendance because of fear of violence, and the school violence problem. Analyses of variance compared the four bully/victim groups with regard to school climate outcomes, non-attendance due to fear of violence, and school violence problems. Scheffe’s post hoc comparisons determined significance of differences between bully/victim groups. Analyses were conducted using the SPSS (17) statistical software.

Results

Descriptive statistics for student reports of teacher and student responses to fighting at school, safety, school violence, and non-attendance due to fear are provided in Table 1 (See Supplemental Materials). On average, student reports of positive teacher and student responses to fighting at school were less encouraging (i.e. less positive) compared with their reports of negative responses. Overall findings indicated students felt rather safe in their schools, with high levels of perceived school safety and lower levels of non-attendance due to fear. Student reports of school violence and school violence problems in their schools were less encouraging, with average reports in the center of the range of scores.

Table 2 (See Supplemental Materials) presents correlations between student perceptions of teacher and student responses to school violence at the school level. Findings revealed a significant positive high correlation between positive (r = 0.517) and negative (r = 0.595) student and teacher responses to violence at the school level. Contradictory teacher and student responses to school violence were either negatively correlated or had low levels of correlation.

Table 3 (See Supplemental Materials) presents the correlations between student perceptions of teacher and student responses to violence at school, school climate outcomes, non-attendance due to fear of violence, and school violence as a problem. Student reports on school climate outcomes, non-attendance due to fear, and school violence problem were significantly correlated to student reports of teacher and student responses to bullying at school. Findings indicated that when teacher and student responses were positive, students felt safer, reported less violence in their school, did not skip school due to fear, and viewed violence in their school as less of a problem. On the other hand, student reports of negative teacher and student responses to fighting at school were related to a lower sense of safety, increased school violence, more reports of non-attendance due to fear of violence, and perceptions of school violence as a more serious problem.

Most students (79.2%) were not involved at all in bullying at school, followed by victims (10.4%), bullies (6.0%), and both bullies and victims (4.4%) (Table 4; See Supplemental Materials).

To examine the differences in each group’s perceptions of student and teacher responses to school fighting, univariate analyses of variance were computed (Table 5; See Supplemental Materials). The results revealed significant differences between groups in terms of perceptions of positive (f[3, 13552] = 83.45, p < 0.001) and negative (f[3, 13720] = 241.45, p < 0.001) teacher responses to fighting at school. Significant differences were also found with respect to positive (f[3, 13359] = 30.53, p < 0.001) and negative (f[3, 13385] = 128.17, p < 0.001) student responses to fighting at school. Scheffe’s post hoc tests revealed students who were not involved in bullying were most likely to perceive positive teacher and student responses, whereas bullies, victims, and bully-victims were significantly less likely to perceive responses as positive. Further, the four groups of students differed significantly in terms of perceptions of negative teacher and student responses to school fighting, except for bully-victims and bullies, who reported similar figures for negative responses.

Discussion

School bullying is known for its collective nature and is based on social relationships in a group of students (Salmivalli, 2010). Research stressed the centrality of contextual factors such as peer group-level dynamics and school-level processes to enhancing efforts to address bullying among students, rather than factors related to the individual bullies and victims (Craig et al., 2007; Swearer et al., 2010). However, most studies on school bullying have focused on interactions between the bully and the victim and their personal sociopsychological characteristics, overlooking the social dynamics of the school that contribute to or decrease bullying (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). The fact that bullying is a group process reveals the importance of investigating the impact of improving the classroom and school climate on reducing bullying (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2012). A critical contextual factor that could decrease, maintain, or exacerbate bullying is how school personnel and students respond to bullying (Craig et al., 2000).

This study examined patterns in student perceptions of student and teacher responses to school violence and differences in perceptions according to bully/victim participation. Student perceptions of responses to school violence, safety, not attending school due to fear of violence, and students’ sense of the severity of the violence problem in their school were examined. Findings indicated although students felt personally safe and did not tend to skip school due to fear, they evaluated school violence and the school violence problem as quite severe. Findings suggest although not victimized themselves, students tended to judge their school as having a serious and dangerous violence problem. Students have a good sense of school events, such as bullying and responses to bullying, and therefore may feel threatened and conclude that the school has a major violence problem, regardless of personal victimization experience. Therefore, findings highlight the importance of studying violence and responses from their perspective.

On average, students did not feel negative responses to violence were frequent. However, they felt positive responses were too rare. The findings mirrored previous studies indicating that although peers were present during most bullying episodes, they only intervened to stop bullying in 10% to 11% of cases (Atlas & Pepler, 1998). Similarly, findings of studies conducted in the US (Fekkes, Pijpers, & Verloove-Vanhorick, 2005) England (Smith & Shu, 2002), Australia (Rigby & Barnes, 2002), and Scandinavia (Olweus, 1993) indicated teachers inaction and ineffectiveness in stopping bullying. The current findings were somewhat encouraging in that it seems students and teachers typically did not actively accelerate violent episodes. However, they seemed to be reluctant to actively intervene to stop bullying.

Previous findings indicated bystanders fail to take supportive action for fear of becoming victims, fear of reprisal, or simply because they did not know how to react (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005), and that teachers are generally unaware of bullying and therefore unable to intervene (Craig et al., 2000; Smith et al., 2004). In Cyprus some teachers and schools were found to be more effective than others in facing and reducing bullying, and variation in their effectiveness status was explained by classroom and school level environment (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2012). These findings suggest a need to develop intervention programs that enhance a positive school climate, in which teachers and students share more intimate, caring, and close relationships (Osher et al., 2012), and remove communication barriers to increase teacher awareness of school bullying. A Suggestion Box in a discreet location at school, which enables students to leave anonymous notes about problems they have or observe, can help students communicate better with their teachers and access help (Howe, Wright Marini, Haymes, & Tenor, 2013). Another successful strategy for increasing teachers’ awareness to bullying at school is anti-bullying training. A study conducted in Finland (Sairanen & Pfeffer, 2011) revealed anti-bullying training was a significant factor in explaining teachers’ handling of bullying as trained teachers were more aware of bullying and reported ignoring such incidents significantly less than untrained teachers.

Providing students with opportunities to role play and practice positive bystander intervention can raise awareness of bullying and encourage active and prosocial bullying roles (Polanin, Espelage, & Pigott, 2012). School policies should therefore encourage students to intervene on behalf of victims, and promote values of care, tolerance, and reciprocity among stakeholders in the school community via a consistent message about intervention and ample support from adults and administrators. An effective method to handle school violence is through school-based programs which go beyond violence prevention and include conflict resolution skills. School-based conflict resolution programs can provide students with skills to better manage and resolve conflict and to promote tolerance and acceptance among students and teachers. Woody (2013) describes the key components of such successful programs: They are based on a comprehensive approach which cooperates with the family and the community, integrate culturally sensitive contents, begin early on in kindergarten and reinforced across the school years, promote personal and social competencies, and based on interactive techniques that use group work, cooperative learning, discussion, and role play to develop personal and social skills among all students (Woody, 2013).

School climate literature consistently has shown how students’ obligation to one another is enhanced through feelings of belonging to the school (Syvertsen, Flanagen, & Stout, 2009). Prosocial behavior can be fostered by teachers in the classroom through cooperative group work during which democratic values are promoted, and through exemplifying positive relationship and attitudes in their own interactions (Craig et al., 2007). Life skills training groups for students also represent an opportunity to enhance all students’ prosocial decision making skills while increasing their sense of community, strengthening their social network, and thereby improving the social climate of the school as a whole. Students in such schools are less likely to bully, more likely to report bullying if they observe it, and more likely to seek help if they are victims (Howe et al., 2013).

Findings from this study further emphasize the central role of teachers in addressing violent behaviors at school; on average, students perceived their own positive responses to violence as less positive compared to teachers’ responses. Students also perceived their own negative responses as more negative compared to those of their teachers. Moreover, the findings indicate that when teacher respond positively to violence, students also respond more positively. It is therefore important to address challenges teachers face with bullying behavior. It is possible that teachers respond in a negative manner to violence out of frustration and the lack of effective tools or methodologies to adequately address violence. Previous studies have highlighted the potential dangers of staff avoidance of violence as inaction on their behalf was related to increased levels of student victimization. Clear school policies and specific guidelines on how to react when violence occurs could help teachers deal effectively with it.

Findings supported the hypotheses of correlation between positive responses to violence and positive school experiences. The strongest relationships emerged with regard to the school climate measure––student feelings of safety and perceptions of lower levels of school violence. These results correspond with evidence that responses to violence, safety, and school violence comprise a significant part of the school environment, or a school’s climate (Skevington, 2003).

Cohen (2006) offered a useful method to address bully, victim, and bystander behavior and to foster a positive school environment through collaboration of school staff, including leadership, counselors, social workers, psychologist, and teachers, as well as students and parents. A joint collaboration starts with an understanding of everyone in the school community that there is always a passive bystander who colludes with the bully/victim behavior or an ‘upstander’ who opposes the bullying. A schoolwide effort might allow all members of the community to articulate a shared vision about what kind of school is desired. Since dangerous bystanders behavior has been related to bullies and bully-victims (Oh & Hazler, 2009), intervention programs should include special reference to the specific needs and circumstances of bullies and bully-victims as they tend to reinforce and instigate bullying even as bystanders.

To better understand how personal experiences of violence in school relate to student perceptions of responses to violence, differences across bully/victim groups were examined. Previous studies reported on negative sociopsychological results associated with involvement in bullying, especially experiencing victimization or both bullying and victimization (e.g. Berkowitz & Benbenishty, 2012; Hanish & Guerra, 2004). Because being a bully-victim has been associated with severe forms of violence (Demaray & Malecki, 2003) and with negative relationships with peers (Perren & Alsaker, 2006) and teachers (Khoury-Kassabry, 2009), this study hypothesized that bully-victims would have the worst perceptions of positive responses to violence. Indeed, findings revealed that students who were not involved in school bullying had the best perceptions of positive responses to violence. However, significant differences were not found among the other three groups. The findings suggest that any participation in school violence––regardless of the role that students take in the violent interaction––results in a significant decrease in their perceptions of positive student and teacher responses, compared to nonparticipation in school violence. Because responses to violence are a significant factor in students’ school experiences, the results further emphasize the critical importance of promoting a safe school environment. Successful school-based interventions have managed to significantly reduce school bullying, focusing on improving school climate through increased awareness, involvement and supervision, clear rules, and strong norms against violence.

Footnotes

Author biography

Ruth Berkowitz, PhD, completed her doctoral studies at the School of Social Work at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and currently is a post-doctoral researcher at the USC School of Social Work. Her main research interest is the school setting as an arena to form the lives and well-being of children in normative settings and as influencing social justice and social mobility. She studies school climate and their relationships to students' outcomes including academics with a special interest in military-connected students, the interplay of perpetrating and victimization of violence in schools, school evidence-based practices, and schools as learning organizations.

References

Andreou

Metallidou

(2004) The relationship of academic and social cognition to behaviour in bullying situations among Greek primary school children. Educational Psychology 24: 27–41. doi: 10.1080/0144341032000146421.

Astor

R. A.

Behre

W. J.

Wallace

J. M.

Fravil

K. A.

(1998) School social workers and school violence: Personal safety, training, and violence programs. Social Work 43: 223–232. doi: 10.1093/sw/43.3.223.

Astor

R. A.

Benbenishty

Vinokur

A. D.

Zeira

(2006) Arab and Jewish elementary school students’ perceptions of fear and school violence: Understanding the influence of school context. British Journal of Educational Psychology 76: 91–118. doi: 10.1348/000709905X37307.

Astor

R. A.

Benbenishty

Zeira

Vinokur

(2002) School climate, observed risky behaviors, and victimization as predictors of high school students’ fear and judgments of school violence as a problem. Health Education and Behavior 29: 716–736. doi: 10.1177/109019802237940.

Astor, R. A., Meyer, H. A., & Pitner, R. O. (2001). Elementary and middle school students’ perceptions of violence-prone school subcontexts. The Elementary School Journal, 511–528.

Atlas

R. S.

Pepler

D. J.

(1998) Observations of bullying in the classroom. Journal of Educational Research 92: 86–99. doi: 10.1080/00220679809597580.

Benbenishty

(2003) School violence in Israel: 2002 [in Hebrew], Jerusalem, Israel: Hebrew University.

Benbenishty

Astor

R. A.

(2005) School violence in context: Culture, neighborhood, family, school, and gender, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Benbenishty

Khoury-Kassabri

Astor

R. A.

(2006) School violence in Israel: 2005 [in Hebrew], Jerusalem, Israel: Hebrew University.

10.

Benbenishty

Zeira

Astor

R. A.

(2000) Violence in the Israel education system: A summary report [in Hebrew], Jerusalem, Israel: Hebrew University.

11.

Berkowitz

Benbenishty

(2012) Perceptions of teachers’ support, safety, and absence from school because of fear among victims, bullies, and bully-victims. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 82: 67–74. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2011.01132.x.

12.

Camodeca

Goossens

F. A.

(2005) Children’s opinions on effective strategies to cope with bullying: The importance of bullying role and perspective. Educational Research 47: 93–105. doi: 10.1080/0013188042000337587.

13.

Chen

J. K.

Astor

R. A.

(2012) School variables as mediators of the effect of personal and family factors on school violence in Taiwanese junior high schools. Youth and Society 44(2): 175–200. doi: 10.1177/0044118X12448145.

14.

Cheng

Y. Y.

Chen

L. M.

H. C.

Cheng

C. L.

(2011) Definitions of school bullying in Taiwan: A comparison of multiple perspectives. School Psychology International 32(3): 227–243.

15.

Cohen

(2006) Social, emotional, ethical, and academic education: Creating a climate for learning, participation in democracy, and well-being. Harvard Educational Review 76: 201–237.

16.

Cohen, J., & Geier, V. K. (2010). School climate research summary: January 2010. Retrieved from http://www.schoolclimate.org/climate/documents/SCBrief_v1n1_Jan2010.pdf.

17.

Cohen

McCabe

Michelli

N. M.

Pickeral

(2009) School climate: Research, policy, practice, and teacher education. Teachers College Record 111: 180–213.

18.

Cowie

(2000) Bystanding or standing by: Gender issues in coping with bullying in English schools. Aggressive Behavior 26: 85–97. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(2000)26:1<85::AID-AB7>3.0.CO;2-5.

19.

Craig

W. M.

Pepler

(1995) Peer processes in bullying and victimization: A naturalistic study. Exceptionality Education in Canada 4: 81–95.

20.

Craig

W. M.

Pepler

Atlas

(2000) Observations of bullying in the playground and in the classroom. School Psychology International 21: 22–36. doi: 10.1177/0143034300211002.

21.

Craig

Pepler

Blais

(2007) Responding to bullying: What works? School Psychology International 28: 465–477.

22.

Demaray

M. K.

Malecki

C. K.

(2003) Perceptions of the frequency and importance of social support by students classified as victims, bullies, and bully-victims in an urban middle school. School Psychology Review 32: 471–489.

23.

Dupper

D. R.

Meyer-Adams

(2002) Low-level violence: A neglected aspect of school culture. Urban Education 37: 350–364. doi: 10.1177/00485902037003003.

24.

Dwyer

K. P.

Osher

Hoffman

C. C.

(2000) Creating responsive schools: Contextualizing early warning, timely response. Exceptional Children 66: 347–365.

25.

Eliot

Cornell

Gregory

Fan

(2010) Supportive school climate and student willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence. Journal of School Psychology 48: 533–553. doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2010.07.001.

26.

Farmer

G. L.

(1999) Disciplinary practices and perceptions of school safety. Journal of Social Service Research 26(1): 1–38. doi: 10.1300/J079v26n01_01.

27.

Fekkes

Pijpers

F. I.

Verloove-Vanhorick

S. P.

(2005) Bullying: who does what, when and where? Involvement of children, teachers and parents in bullying behavior. Health Education Research 20(1): 81–91. doi: 10.1093/her/cyg100.

28.

Furlong

M. J.

Chung

Bates

Morrison

R. L.

(1995) Profiles of non-victims and multiple-victims of school violence. Education and Treatment of Children 18: 282–298.

29.

Gottfredson

G. D.

Gottfredson

D. C.

Czeh

E. R.

Cantor

Crosse

S. B.

Hantman

(2002) National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, summary, Washington, DC: US Department of JusticeRetrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/194116.pdf.

30.

Gottfredson

G. D.

Gottfredson

D. C.

Payne

A. A.

Gottfredson

N. C.

(2005) School climate predictors of school disorder: Results from a national study of delinquency prevention in schools. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency 42: 412–444. doi: 10.1177/0022427804271931.

31.

Hanish

L. D.

Guerra

N. G.

(2004) Aggressive victims, passive victims, and bullies: Developmental continuity or developmental change? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 50: 17–38. doi: 10.1353/mpq.2004.0003.

32.

Harel

Kenny

Rahav

(1997) Youth in Israel: Social welfare, health and risk behaviors from an international perspective, Jerusalem: JDC and Bar Ilan University.

33.

Haynie

D. L.

Nansel

Eitel

Crump

A. D.

Saylor

Simons-Morton

(2001) Bullies, victims, and bully/victims: Distinct groups of at-risk youth. Journal of Early Adolescence 21: 29–49. doi: 10.1177/0272431601021001002.

34.

Hazler

R. J.

(1996) Bystanders: An overlooked factor in peer on peer abuse. Journal for the Professional Counselor 11: 11–21.

35.

Howe

Wright Marini

Haymes

Tenor

(2013) Bullying: Best practice for prevention and intervention in schools. In: Franklin

Harris

M. B.

Allen-Meares

(eds) The school services sourcebook: A guide for school-based professionals, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 473–480.

36.

Isaacs

Hodges

E. V. E.

Salmivalli

(2008) Long-term consequences of victimization by peers: A follow-up from adolescence to young adulthood. International Journal of Developmental Science 2: 387–397. doi: 10.3233/DEV-2008-2404.

37.

Juvonen

Graham

(2001) Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized, New York, NY: Guilford Press.

38.

Khoury-Kassabri

(2009) The relationship between staff maltreatment of students and bully-victim group membership. Child Abuse and Neglect 33: 914–923. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.05.005.

39.

Khoury-Kassabri

Astor

R. A.

Bebnbenishty

(2009) Middle Eastern adolescents’ perpetration of school violence against peers and teachers. A cross-cultural and ecological analysis. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 24(1): 159–182. doi: 10.1177/.

40.

Kitsantas

Ware

H. W.

Martinez-Arias

(2004) Students’ perceptions of school safety: Effects by community, school environment, and substance use variables. Journal of Early Adolescence 24: 412–430. doi: 10.1177/0272431604268712.

41.

Kochenderfer

B. J.

Ladd

G. W.

(1996) Peer victimization: Cause or consequence of school maladjustment? Child Development 67: 1305–1317. doi: 10.2307/1131701.

42.

Kyriakides, L., & Creemers, B. P. M. (2012). Characteristics of effective schools in facing and reducing bullying. School Psychology International. 34(3), 348–368.

43.

Liang

Flisher

A. J.

Lombard

C. J.

(2007) Bullying, violence, and risk behavior in South African school students. Child Abuse and Neglect 31(2): 161–161. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2006.08.007.

44.

Lynn Hawkins

Pepler

D. J.

Craig

W. M.

(2001) Naturalistic observations of peer interventions in bullying. Social Development 10(4): 512–527. doi: 10.1111/1467-9507.00178.

45.

(2001) Bullying and being bullied: To what extent are bullies also victims? American Educational Research Journal 38: 351–370. doi: 10.3102/00028312038002351.

46.

Mayer

D. P.

Mullens

J. E.

Moore

M. T.

Ralph

(2000) Monitoring school quality: An indicators report, Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education StatisticsRetrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001030.pdf.

47.

Menesini

Codecasa

Benelli

Cowie

(2003) Enhancing children’s responsibility to take action against bullying: Evaluation of a befriending intervention in Italian middle schools. Aggressive Behavior 29: 1–14. doi: 10.1002/ab.80012.

48.

Menesini

Eslea

Smith

P. K.

Grenta

M. L.

Giannetti

Fonzi

Costabile

(1997) Cross-national comparison of children’s attitudes toward bully/victim problems in schools. Aggressive Behavior 23: 245–257.

49.

Murray-Harvey

Slee

P. T.

(2010) School and home relationships and their impact on school bullying. School Psychology International 31(3): 271–295.

50.

Nabuzoka

Rønning

J. A.

Handegård

B. H.

(2009) Exposure to bullying, reactions and psychological adjustment of secondary school students. Educational Psychology 29: 849–866. doi: 10.1080/01443410903326613.

51.

Nansel

T. R.

Overpeck

Pilla

R. S.

Ruan

W. J.

Simons-Morton

Scheidt

(2001) Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association 285: 2094–2100. doi: 10.1001/jama.285.16.2094.

52.

National School Climate Council. (2007). The school climate challenge: Narrowing the gap between school climate research and school climate policy, practice guidelines and teacher education policy. Retrieved from Education Commission of the United States website: http://www.ecs.org/html/projectsPartners/nclc/docs/school-climate-challenge-web.pdf.

53.

Nishina

Juvonen

(2005) Daily reports of witnessing and experiencing peer harassment in middle school. Child Development 76: 435–450. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00855.x.

54.

O’Connell

Pepler

Craig

(1999) Peer involvement in bullying: Insights and challenges for intervention. Journal of Adolescence 22: 437–452. doi: 10.1006/jado.1999.0238.

55.

Hazler

R. J.

(2009) Contributions of personal and situational factors to bystanders’ reactions to school bullying. School Psychology International 30(3): 291–310.

56.

Olweus

(1993) Bully/victim problems among schoolchildren: Long-term consequences and an effective intervention program. In: Hodgins

(eds) Mental disorder and crime, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 317–349.

57.

Osher

Dwyer

K. P.

Jimerson

S. R.

Brown

J. A.

(2012) Developing safe, supportive and effective schools: Facilitating student success to reduce school violence. In: Jimerson

S. R.

Nickerson

A. B.

Mayer

M. J.

Furlong

M. J.

(eds) Handbook of school violence and school safety, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 27–44.

58.

Pellegrini

A. D.

(1998) Bullies and victims in school: A review and call for research. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 19: 165–176. doi: 10.1016/S0193-3973(99)80034-3.

59.

Pellerin, L. A. (2000). Urban youth and schooling: The effect of school climate on student disengagement and dropout. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

60.

Perren

Alsaker

F. D.

(2006) Social behavior and peer relationships of victims, bully-ictims, and bullies in kindergarten. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 47: 45–57. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01445.x.

61.

Polanin

J. R.

Espelage

D. L.

Pigott

T. D.

(2012) A meta-analysis of school-based bullying prevention programs’ effects on bystander intervention behavior. School Psychology Review 41: 47–65.

62.

Richard

J. F.

Schneider

B. H.

Mallet

(2012) Revisiting the whole-school approach to bullying: Really looking at the whole school. School Psychology International 33: 263–284.

63.

Rigby

Barnes

(2002) The victimized student’s dilemma: To tell or not to tell. Youth Studies Australia 21(3): 33–36.

64.

Ripski

M. B.

Gregory

(2009) Unfair, unsafe, and unwelcome: Do high school students’ perceptions of unfairness, hostility, and victimization in school predict engagement and achievement? Journal of School Violence 8: 355–375. doi: 10.1080/15388220903132755.

65.

Rivers

Poteat

V. P.

Noret

Ashurst

(2009) Observing bullying at school: The mental health implications of witness status. School Psychology Quarterly 24: 211–223. doi: 10.1037/a0018164.

66.

Robers, S., Zhang, J., & Truman, J. (2012). Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2011. National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Washington, DC.

67.

Sairanen

Pfeffer

(2011) Self-reported handling of bullying among junior high school teachers in Finland. School Psychology International 32(3): 330–344.

68.

Salmivalli

(2010) Bullying and the peer group: A review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 15: 112–120. doi: 10.1016/j.avb.2009.08.007.

69.

Salmivalli

Lagerspetz

Björkqvist

Österman

Kaukiainen

(1996) Bullying as a group process: Participant roles and their relations to social status within the group. Aggressive Behavior 22: 1–15. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1996)22:1<1::AID-AB1>3.0.CO;2-T.

70.

Skevington, S. (2003). Creating an environment for emotional and social well-being: An important responsibility of health-promoting and child friendly school (Information Series on School Health Document 10). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/sch_childfriendly_03.pdf.

71.

Solberg

M. E.

Olweus

(2003) Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire. Aggressive Behavior 29: 239–268. doi: 10.1002/ab.10047.

72.

Smith

P. K.

(2002) Violence in schools: The response in Europe, London: Routledge.

73.

Smith

P. K.

Brain

(2000) Bullying in schools: Lessons from two decades of research. Aggressive Behavior 26: 1–9. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(2000)26:1<1::AID-AB1>3.0.CO;2-7.

74.

Smith

P. K.

Sharp

(1994) The problem of school bullying. In: Smith

P. K.

Sharp

(eds) School bullying: Insights and perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 1–19.

75.

Smith

P. K.

Talamelli

Cowie

Naylor

Chauhan

(2004) Profiles of non-victims, escaped victims, continuing victims and new victims of school bullying. British Journal of Educational Psychology 74: 565–581. doi: 10.1348/0007099042376427.

76.

Smith

P. K.

Shu

(2002) What good schools can do about bullying: Findings from a survey in English schools after a decade of research and action. Childhood 7: 193–212.

77.

Swearer

S. M.

Espelage

D. L.

Vaillancourt

Hymel

(2010) What can be done about school bullying? Linking research to educational practice. Educational Researcher 39: 38–47. doi: 10.3102/0013189X09357622.

78.

Syvertsen

A. K.

Flanagen

C. A.

Stout

M. D.

(2009) Code of silence: Students’ perceptions of school climate and willingness to intervene in a peer’s dangerous plan. Journal of Educational Psychology 101: 219–232. doi: 10.1037/a0013246.

79.

Tisak

M. S.

Tisak

(1996) Expectations and judgments regarding bystanders and victims responses to peer aggression among early adolescents. Journal of Adolescence 19(4): 383–392.

80.

Ttofi

M. M.

Farrington

D. P.

(2011) Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology 7: 27–56. doi: 10.1007/s11292-010-9109-1.

81.

Twemlow

S. W.

Fonagy

Sacco

F. C.

(2004) The role of the bystander in the social architecture of bullying and violence in schools and communities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1036(1): 215–232. doi: 10.1196/annals.1330.014.

82.

Unnever

J. D.

(2005) Bullies, aggressive victims, and victims: Are they distinct groups? Aggressive Behavior 31: 153–171. doi: 10.1002/ab.20083.

83.

Unnever

J. D.

Cornell

D. G.

(2004) Middle school victims of bullying: Who reports being bullied? Aggressive Behavior 30: 373–388. doi: 10.1002/ab.20030.

84.

Wang

Iannotti

R. J.

Nansel

T. R.

(2009) School bullying among adolescents in the United States: Physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. Journal of Adolescent Health 45: 368–375. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.03.021.

85.

Way

S. M.

(2011) School discipline and disruptive classroom behavior: The moderating effects of students perceptions. Sociological Quarterly 52: 346–375. doi: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01210.x.

86.

Whitney

Smith

P. K.

(1993) A survey of the nature and extent of bullying in junior/middle and secondary schools. Educational Research 35: 3–25. doi: 10.1080/0013188930350101.

87.

Woody

D. J.

(2013) Effective peer conflict resolution. In: Franklin

Harris

M. B.

Allen-Meares

(eds) The school services sourcebook: A guide for school-based professionals, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 481–489.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.14 MB