THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SOCIAL PREFERENCE IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP QUALITY AND PEER VICTIMIZATION

Teachers are integral to cultivating healthy relationships among students (Cortes & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2014) and are uniquely positioned to affect change in social processes that maintain victimization (Newman-Carlson & Horne, 2004; Rodkin & Hodges, 2003). Evidence suggests that children with supportive teacher-student relationships have more positive social and behavioral outcomes (Thijs & Verkuyten, 2008;), whereas teacher-student conflict may place children at risk for victimization (Reavis et al., 2010). In this study, we examine the relation between teacher-student relationship quality (TSRQ) and peer victimization (PV), TSRQ and social preference (SP), and whether SP is one mechanism that explains the link between TSRQ and PV. We hypothesize that students who score high TSRQ will be more preferred by their peers over time, and subsequently less victimized. Additionally, there are reasons to expect differential associations by gender. Girls typically receive higher scores for acceptance and perceived popularity (Cilsssen & Mayeux, 2004). The role of gender in the associations among TSRQ, SP, and PV was an exploratory goal of the current investigation. Results indicated that girls who scored higher on TSRQ at time 1 were more preferred by peers at time 2 and experienced lower levels of peer victimization at time 3. There was also some evidence of a reciprocal relation between social preference and peer victimization overtime. Evidence suggests that researchers developing interventions for bullied children should attend to the teacher-student relationship, and this could be particularly important for girls.