Preparing Teachers to Manage School Bullying: The Hidden Curriculum

Abstract

In addition to promoting academic success, teachers' responsibilities include behavior management and socialization of their students. A common source of behavior problems teachers regularly encounter is aggression in the form of bullying. To enable them to effectively manage these behaviors, support in the form of pre-service training is required. This paper presents background information about the nature of bullying, followed by an examination of pre-service teachers' needs for more knowledge, skills, and confidence to deal with bullying. Finally, suggestions for how teacher preparation programs can provide training on bullying are provided.