In a cross-sectional questionnaire study with N = 2593 German students, aged between 12 and 17 years (M = 14.1, SD = 0.5), we investigated the relation between students’ personal belief in a just world (BJW) and their victimization in bullying situations. According to the just-world theory and research, we expected that the more strongly the students endorsed the personal BJW, the less likely they were to report being victimized by other students. We aimed to extend previous findings that failed to confirm this negative relation by considering students’ personal experience of teacher justice as a possible mediator in this relation, while statistically controlling for sex and school type. We further considered the nested data structure with regard to school classes in our analyses. The results of latent mediation analyses at the individual and group levels showed that the more the students endorsed personal BJW, the more they evaluated their teachers’ behavior toward them personally as being just, and the less likely they were to report that they were bullied. However, the students’ personal experience of teacher justice did not mediate the relation between personal BJW and victimization at the individual or group level when controlled for sex and school type. We discussed the adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research and practice.

中文翻译：

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信仰公正世界作为受害学生的资源

在一项针对N  = 2593名德国学生的12到17岁之间的横断面调查研究中（M = 14.1，SD = 0.5），我们调查了学生对正义世界（BJW）的个人信仰与他们在欺凌情况下受害之间的关系。根据正义世界的理论和研究，我们希望学生越强烈地支持个人BJW，他们报告自己遭受其他学生伤害的可能性就越小。我们的目的是通过考虑学生的个人司法公正经验作为可能的调解者，同时统计性别和学校类型，从而扩展未能证实这种消极关系的先前发现。我们在分析中进一步考虑了关于学校课程的嵌套数据结构。在个人和小组两级的潜在调解分析结果表明，学生越认可个人BJW，他们越评价自己的老师对他们的行为是否公正，他们报告自己被欺负的可能性就越小。但是，在控制性别和学校类型时，学生的个人司法公正经验并未在个人或团体层面上调解个人BJW与受害之间的关系。我们讨论了BJW的适应功能及其对未来学校研究和实践的启示。