Citation

Bjärehed M, Sjögren B, Thornberg R, Gini G, Pozzoli T. Front. Psychol. 2024; 15: e1381015.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1381015

PMID

38751766

PMCID

PMC11095254

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine whether collective moral disengagement and authoritative teaching at the classroom level, and student-teacher relationship quality at the individual level, predicted individual moral disengagement among pre-adolescent students 1 year later. In this short-term longitudinal study, 1,373 students from 108 classrooms answered a web-based questionnaire on tablets during school, once in fifth grade (T1) and once in sixth grade (T2). The results showed, after controlling for T1 moral disengagement, gender, and immigrant background, that students with better student-teacher relationship quality at T1 were more inclined to score lower on moral disengagement at T2, whereas students in classrooms with higher levels of collective moral disengagement at T1 were more inclined to score higher on moral disengagement at T2. In addition, both collective moral disengagement and authoritative teaching were found to moderate the associations between student-teacher relationship quality at T1 and moral disengagement at T2. These findings underscore the importance of fostering positive relationships between students and teachers, as well as minimizing collective moral disengagement in classrooms. These measures may prevent the potential escalation of moral disengagement in a negative direction.

Language: en

Keywords

authoritative teaching; bullying; collective moral disengagement; moral disengagement; peer aggression; student-teacher relationship quality