Authoritative school climate and peer victimization among Brazilian students

Abstract

According to the Authoritative School Climate theory, a school environment perceived with high levels of support and disciplinary structure can be a protective factor against violence. Therefore, the current study aimed to understand how support and disciplinary structure affected peer victimization among Brazilian students. Participants were 420 students from Brazil, between 7 and 14 years old (mean=10.02; S.D. = .91); 51.5% of the participants were boys. Measures were obtained from a self-report questionnaire with measures of victimization, authoritative school climate and sociodemographic data. Using multilevel modeling between individual and same-sex peer group analyses, 89.86% of the victimization variability was at the individual level. Results indicated a negative association between the student’s perception of support and reports of victimization, but no gender differences as predictors of victimization. Younger students who reported lowers perceptions of support also could be more victimized.