Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-15
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Qingqing Yang, Research Scientist of Education, University at Albany, State University of New York Why do some classes experience more bullying than others? According to an American study, the most turbulent school environments slightly but permanently increase the risk of violence among students.
In the United States, approximatelyone in four primary school studentsdeclares having been a victim of harassment at least once during a school year. Children who are frequently bullied are more likely toto encounter academic difficulties, to suffer from poorer physical healthand to develop, while growing up, disorders such as depression, anxiety, or addictions.
These consequences can persist into adulthood and contribute tosituations of unemployment and financial insecurity. Most research on bullying focuses on the individual characteristics of children, for example the fact that they show signsaggressivenessor that their parents resort tophysical punishmentsAt home.
Children exposed to strict or punitive education, even without physical violence, may also be more likely to adopt bullying behaviors. But more generally, harassment ratesvary greatly from one class to another. Ofnew research that I have conductedwith colleagues from the University of Albany in the United States and other institutions show that the classroom environment plays an important role in school bullying.
Children have a slightly higher risk of being bullied when they are in classes frequently disrupted by behavioral problems or marked by a chaotic climate — even considering individual factors such as their personality or family environment.
Our results thus show that bullying does not depend solely on who the children are, but also on the environments to which they are exposed at school. Evaluate the classroom climate We analyzed surveys conducted among teachers and students by the National Center for Education Statistics of the United States Department of Education between 2014 and 2016.
This data, collected nationally, concerned teachers and children in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade (CE2, CM1, and CM2). Teachers had to assess whether their class was disruptive or not by indicating how many students had difficulties staying attentive, behaving properly, or following instructions.
They also assigned an overall rating of the level of disruption in their class. On their part, the students indicated how often they were victims of harassment, whether it was teasing, insults, deliberate exclusion from games, or even physical violence such as pushing or hitting.
To ensure that these results reflected a genuine trend and not merely a coincidence, we used a statistical method to verify whether the same students reported more — or conversely fewer — instances of harassment depending on whether they were in more or less disruptive or chaotic classes over the course of the school years.
In other words, we studied how changes in a child’s school environment were associated with variations in their own experience of bullying. This approach allows us to distinguish the effect of the classroom climate from differences related to children’s personal characteristics or their family environment.
Reduce the noise in the classrooms Traditionally, theanti-harassment measuresfocus on the individual behaviors of students or on family dynamics. Interventions may, for example, consist of teaching social skills to children or offering more support and training to parents to help them respond to their children’s behaviors.
However, programs targeting only the harassers or the victims are notalways effective in preventing harassment. Our results suggest that addressing disorder and disruptions in the classroom is a credible path to reducing bullying. The effects observed are modest but consistent, which means that this trend remains visible even when rigorous statistical tests are applied.
In our view, greater awareness of this link could havea significant impactAt the scale of an entire class. When teachers describe a class as disrupted, it reflects both the behavior of the students and the challenges faced in managing a classroom full of children.
These challenges include maintaining students’ attention, encouraging appropriate behavior, and ensuring they follow instructions. In the most chaotic classrooms, students can talk at the same time, get up constantly, or have difficulty staying focused on their work.
This creates an environment where it becomes more difficult to maintain order and can cause a “contagion effect” negative behaviors. Aggressiveness can then become more frequent and even be reinforced within the group, increasing the risk of harassment.
Managing a chaotic class can also beparticularly emotionally taxingfor teachers. They must devote more time to managing disruptions and refocusing students on their work. This not only reduces the time and energy they have to prevent or address bullying situations, but also their ability to identify them from the outset.
At the same time, it is important to recall that heavily disrupted classes often reflect somebroader problems, such as excessively high staffing levels, a lack of funding for institutions, or difficulties encountered by students outside of school — poverty, housing instability, or trauma.
Better support teachers, notably through professional training onemotional support for studentsor onthe association between rules and positive or negative consequences, can help reduce disruptive behavior in the classroom. The impact of disruption in class also fits into a broader context of social inequalities.
Previous research shows that students from low-income families, belonging to racial or ethnic minorities, as well as students with disabilitiesare at greater risk of being victims of harassment.Our studyhelps to understand why: these students are more often enrolled in chaotic classrooms.
This does not mean that they are voluntarily placed in this type of environment, but rather that they attend moreestablishments with limited financial means, with more crowded classes, fewer experienced teachers, and fewer specialized support systems to assist the students who need them.
The next steps Harassment is a serious problem, common from primary school onwards, which makes its prevention a priority. Our results shift the focus from solely the individual and family characteristics of students to the broader classroom environment.
Our work also suggests that reducing chaos and disruptions in the classroom could be a promising approach to combat bullying.
However, further research will be necessary to identify other factors related to classroom functioning and to better understand how these dynamics contribute to bullying.
Qingqing Yang received funding from the Spencer Foundation. –ref.
In the United States, harassment is more frequent in restless and poorly structured classrooms –https://theconversation.com/in-the-united-states-harassment-is-more-frequent-in-rowdy-and-poorly-structured-classes-283086