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. 2021 Jan 7;18(2):436.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18020436.

Transactional Links between Teacher-Adolescent Support, Relatedness, and Aggression at School: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Teresa I Jiménez  1 , Jaime León  2 , José Martín-Albo  1 , Andrés S Lombas  1 , Sonsoles Valdivia-Salas  1 , Estefanía Estévez  3
Affiliations

Transactional Links between Teacher-Adolescent Support, Relatedness, and Aggression at School: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Teresa I Jiménez et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

This study examines the reciprocal effects between two school-based relationships within the classroom-namely, perceived teacher support and relatedness with classmates-and school aggression (overt and relational) across two courses of secondary education. Participants were 654 adolescents (48% boys), who were assessed in three waves: first, at the beginning of the academic year (T0), second, at the end of the same academic year (T1), and third, at the beginning of the next academic year (T2) (Mage wave 1 = 13.98 years). Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling was applied. Results show a protective effect of relatedness against relational aggression in both genders. Moreover, we observed a protective effect of perceived teacher support at the beginning of the course for later school aggression as well as a risk effect if this perceived teacher support is maintained throughout the course. These effects were observed in relation with gender-atypical forms of aggression (overt in girls and relational in boys). Finally, aggression had negative consequences for relatedness in girls and for teacher support through the mediation of relatedness in boys. Gender differences and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords: adolescence; overt aggression; relatedness; relational aggression; school aggression; teacher support.

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Conflict of interest statement

This article is based on original research and has not, and will not, be submitted to any other journal for publication. All the authors confirm that the contents of the manuscript follow all required ethical norms applying to scientific publications, and do not have any conflicts of interest that might influence the research. In addition, all the authors contributed significantly to the manuscript and gave their consent to appear in it.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cross-lagged model predicting longitudinal reciprocal relations between teacher support, relatedness, and overt aggression in girls. Only estimates significant at p < 0.05 or less are provided. Cross-lagged paths are depicted in bold. * p < 0.05; *** p < 0.001.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cross-lagged model predicting longitudinal reciprocal relations between teacher support, relatedness, and overt aggression in boys. Only estimates significant at p < 0.05 or less are provided. Cross-lagged paths are depicted in bold. *** p < 0.001.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cross-lagged model predicting longitudinal reciprocal relations between teacher support, relatedness, and relational aggression in girls. Only estimates significant at p < 0.05 or less are provided. Cross-lagged paths are depicted in bold. * p < 0.05; *** p < 0.001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Cross-lagged model predicting longitudinal reciprocal relations between teacher support, relatedness, and relational aggression in boys. Only estimates significant at p < 0.05 or less are provided. Cross-lagged paths are depicted in bold. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. *** p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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