Abstract
This research investigates the trajectory patterns of teacher victimization across time and predictors to explain distinctive patterns of victimization in the context of opportunity theories. Group-based trajectory modeling is adopted to estimate the latent trajectory groups of teacher victimization with four waves of the study sample. Seven different types of teacher victimization by students at school are measured and six key individual-level measures of the presence of capable guardianship, motivated offender, target vulnerability, and target antagonism are included. The findings show that group-based trajectory modeling identifies five distinct groups for teacher victimization trajectories and a substantial proportion of the sample was found belonging to the mid-stable and high-stable groups, indicating students’ aggression toward teachers is a serious and pervasive problem, continuously affecting many teachers over time, across a variety of victimization types. The findings provide some support of opportunity theory’s applicability in explaining distinctive patterns of teacher victimization trajectories as several theoretically informed factors were found to be related to class membership. Overall, the findings have demonstrated the importance of understanding heterogeneity and distinctive trajectories of teacher victimization over time in order to inform the development and implementation of comprehensive anti-teacher victimization interventions and counseling programs specifically targeted to mid/high-stable victimized groups.
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Acknowledgements
This project was supported by Award Nos. 2015-CK-BX-0019 and 2017-CK-BX-0010, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.
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Moon, B., Kim, J. & McCluskey, J. Using a Group-Based Trajectory Approach to Assess Theoretical Predictors of Teacher Victimization. J Dev Life Course Criminology 8, 75–95 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-022-00187-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-022-00187-x