The efficacy of teachers' responses to incidents of bullying and victimization: The mediational role of moral disengagement for bullying

Teachers respond differently to bullying and victimization. Together, socio-cognitive and moral domain theory suggest that students elaborate their teachers’ behavior cognitively and that teacher response to incidents of bullying and victimization could affect students’ moral disengagement. We examined the mediating effect of student’s moral disengagement between types of teacher response in situations of bullying and victimization and individual bullying. Participants were 609 students (50% boys, age M=11.47, SD=1.14) of central Italy, nested in 34 classes.