- Email: [email protected]
School stress, teachers’ abusive behaviors, and children’s coping strategies
Pergamon
Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 24, No. 11, pp. 1443–1449, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/00/$–see front matter
PII S0145-2134(00)00201-5
SCHOOL STRESS, TEACHERS’ ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS, AND CHILDREN’S COPING STRATEGIES ANNA PIEKARSKA Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
ABSTRACT Objective: This paper presents the research study on school stress and the coping strategies children use in public schools in Poland. The main goals were to identify and investigate: (1) school stress components, its frequency and intensity, (2) its psychological and temperamental correlates and consequences, (3) students’ coping strategies. Method: A field-correlative design was applied to test 271 students, between the ages of 13 and 14, using six questionnaires. School stressors and children’s coping strategies were identified and analyzed on two separate questionnaires with open-ended questions. School stress scale investigated the frequency of stress components and the intensity of stress. Anxiety level was measured by standardized, Polish version of STAIC. Temperamental characteristics were tested by the standardized questionnaire STI-R/4. Results: The most frequent stressors were teachers’ abusive behaviors in the classroom teaching and assessment. Students’ coping strategies, and their school results, were determined by the intensity of school stress, anxiety, and temperamental characteristic. Conclusions: This study demonstrated teachers’ psychological abuse as an important component of children’s school stress. An over-abundant by the abuse, stress and anxiety subjects regulate their optimal level of stimulation and activation by using survival-coping strategies, destructive for their school achievements, and well-being. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Key Words—School stress, Children’s coping behaviors, Teachers’ abusive behaviors.
INTRODUCTION THE SITUATION IN most public schools is difficult in Poland. The economic condition of schools is poor and is currently being made more obvious by the country’s transformations of social and economic systems. Educational programs are extremely overloaded and teachers’ professional motivation, competence and performance are below the expected level. Therefore, the psychosocial environment of healthy, optimal development, education and socialization of children at school is at a high risk. However, one could be led to believe that this ‘school crisis’ refers only to the specific conditions in Poland. The recent violent incidents at schools around the world indicate that school education is in a deep crisis, and the causes need to be studied urgently and carefully. Many social, political and cultural factors, such as life stress, a culture of violence, violent contents of the media, family crisis, and so forth can be pointed to as reasons for this serious situation. However, it should be noticed that there is one, important manifestation of children’s and young people’s attitudes towards school. Students simply do not like school. They either do not like their fellow students or the teachers. In fact, nobody likes school. Not the governments, with their constantly changing
Received for publication May 23, 1995; final revision received February 28, 2000; accepted March 1, 2000. Requests for reprints should be sent to Anna Piekarska, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Education, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. 1443
1444
A. Piekarska
policies and funding cuts for schools, nor parents who are unhappy with their children’s poor educational results nor teachers with their loss of status and low incomes. Therefore, maybe, instead of looking for external causes of school alarming situation and blaming them for recent school crisis we should rather study closer the physical, psychological and social school environment. This search for internal, significant factors related to complicated school dynamic may lead us to discover and understand the unknown part of children’s and young people’s lives, which is their life at school. Thus school stress, teachers’ abusive behaviors towards students as its significant components, and other important stress correlates are investigated and presented in this article.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Review of Polish Studies on School Stress Various research conducted in Polish educational institutions such as kindergartens, preschools, primary, secondary, and boarding schools in the 1980s revealed that child abuse and neglect was a widespread phenomenon and was manifested through a great variety of teachers’ abusive or neglectful attitudes and behaviors towards students (Noller & Piekarska, 1991). In a 1988 study, Szymkiewicz asked high school students to perform a psychodrama entitled “A 5 minute school lesson” (Szymkiewicz, 1988). Analysis of this study led her describe a typical characteristic of the relationship between teacher and student. Recurring themes in the students’ plays were teacher domination, constant demonstration of power, and hostility. Teachers were portrayed as mostly focused on controlling students by using threats of bad grades while students were constantly concentrated on avoiding them. Both the emotions of teachers and of students were presented as negative, with the dominance of mutual fear and lack of trust. Gorecka and NiespojRoguszko (1992) analyzed the data from “Youth Telephone” (a youth helpline) in one of the biggest Polish cities. The most abundant and important problems reported to that institution by children and teenagers were school failures, conflicts with teachers and parents concerning school performance and generally high levels of frustration, fear and anger towards school and teachers. Between 1987 and 1989, Bach-Olasik (1991) tested 1500 students (aged 15–18), from public high schools in Warsaw, with a specially prepared questionnaire. In this sample, 70% of students declared that stress, and the fear of school were dominant emotions in their school life. They reported that the most stressful factors at their schools were: (1) methods used by teachers to control learning and asses students’ knowledge, and (2) the abusive and hostile character of teachers’ attitudes and behaviors towards students, often even described as a “persecutor-victim” relationship. Students described their coping behaviors as avoidance of confrontation with teachers, withdrawal from school life, or various deception strategies. Kicinska and Klause-Jaworska (1992) asked 413 first grade high-school students (aged 15), from seven different, public schools in Warsaw, about their opinion of the new schools they had just started. Only 36% of this sample declared positive opinions about their new school, 52% declared neutral opinions, and 12% stated strongly that they found their new school settings hard to accept at all. Zalewska (1994), also studied 170 first grade high school students, however, she focused both on private and on public Warsaw schools between 1993–1994. The leading goal of this research was the to identify differences in the coping strategies used by the students in the private and public school sectors. The result of this study indicated that the type of school was a significant factor differentiating not only the character of coping strategies used, but also their effectiveness, measured by school records of grades. Students from private schools generally had better achievements (grade averages), lower levels of fear of school and more effective coping behaviors than their peers from the public schools.
School stress
1445
Stress Models, the Concept of School Stress, Its Components and Temperamental Regulation All of the reviewed research studies on children’s situation in Polish public schools clearly indicate that school stress is mostly determined by the abusive and neglectful behaviors and attitudes of teachers. In our study these behaviors were classified as abusive according to Gil’s definition of child abuse, where abuse is described as any act of commission or omission by individuals, institutions, or society as a whole, and any conditions resulting from such acts or inactions which deprive children of their equal rights and liberties and/or interfere with their optimal development (Gil, 1978). As was shown in the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987), psychological stress is always a result of a relationship between the subject and its environment. Stress depends on the subject’s cognitive evaluation of the objective stressor, and then, on its influence on the subject’s reaction. Psychological stressors can be perceived as a challenge or as a threat. Thus, according to their significance for the subject and some important, individual subject characteristics, both challenge and threat can differ in their influence on the subject’s feelings and behavior. School stress should be studied as a unique type of stress because of the involvement of children. The various, developmental needs of children are challenged by the frequency and duration of school stress factors, which significantly influence all aspects of physiological and psychological functioning. The sources, complexity, and intensity of tension for children can be better understood by employing the concept of interaction among the ecological factors in their lives. Belsky (1980) and Bronfenbrenner (1979) postulate that youngsters live simultaneously in a microsystem, an exosystem and a macrosystem and each of these ecological systems continuously interacts with and affects the others. This approach enabled us to apply Strelau’s transactional model of temperament, as a system regulating subject’s optimal level of stimulation (Strelau, 1989). According to his theory and research results, temperamental dimensions such as reactivity (the level of stimulation causing activation in the nervous system), inhibition (the level of stimulation causing inhibition), and the mobility (the dynamics of changes from activation to inhibition) play an important role as mechanisms regulating subject’s interactions with the environment. In case of school stress such temperamental regulation may play a significant role in decreasing or increasing the stress intensity, perceived and experienced by children. Therefore, we studied school stress as a complex phenomenon, using an integrative, theoretical, and methodological approach. The problem appeared even more complex as we assumed, that school stress may be considered as an institutionalized child abuse issue, when teacher’s attitudes and behaviors are intentional and perceived by the children as causing psychological harm or abuse with negative emotional consequences such as fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, or helplessness. This research study was based and designed on the theoretical assumptions discussed above. The research objectives were to examine some important theoretical issues of the concept of school stress, as well as the empirical conditions related to school stress. The main assumptions and research problems tested in the study were: School stress consists of various ecological (physical, psychological and social) factors. Among them are teacher’s abusive attitudes and behaviors, School stress intensity experienced by a child is moderated by the child’s temperamental characteristic (reactivity, inhibition and mobility of the nervous processes). Psychological effects of school stress are associated with the destructive coping strategies. Anxiety and low school achievements may also be the consequences of school stress. METHODOLOGY Subjects The study included 271 primary school students between 13 and 14 years of age, who attended six public schools in different suburbs of Warsaw.
1446
A. Piekarska
Instruments Six different questionnaires were used to detect and evaluate school stress, its components, correlates and consequences. First, difficult school situations (school stress components) and children’s coping behaviors were identified on two questionnaires which asked open-ended questions. Then, a qualitative analysis was used to categorize the data obtained. These procedures constituted a first stage of school stress measure preparation. Then, the school stress and its components: learning, assessment, teachers’ behaviors and attitudes, parental control and help regarding school problems, peers relationships, school discipline, after school additional commitments (e.g., music classes, paid work, homework, etc.), were measured by a questionnaire designed to collect data about students’ subjective feeling of the intensity of school stress. This technique included 38 questions related to stressful situations at school. Responses were on a two three-point scales, that measured the frequency of various stressors and emotional distress they caused in children. The reliability of this instrument was .89 as measured by the coefficient of Kuder and Richardson. A child’s anxiety level was measured by a standardized, Polish version of STAIC. This questionnaire was originally constructed by Spielberger and adapted for the Polish children by Sosnowski and Iwaniszczuk (1990). The subjects’ temperamental characteristics were tested using standardized Strelau‘s questionnaire STI-R/4/. This instrument measures dimensions of temperament such as: (1) reactivity, (the level of stimulation causing activation or inhibition of the nervous system processes), and (2) the mobility of nervous system processes (dynamic of the changes between activation and inhibition) (Strelau, 1985). Additionally, the students’ school results were analyzed, using the average of all grades for the previous school semester. Procedure Subjects completed the questionnaires and scales in 1990. Psychology students helped collect data including students’ school grades. Once the data had been collected, the school difficult situations and coping behavior descriptions given by the children were analyzed for the purpose of categorizing these descriptions into: (1) a school stress components; and (2) a main types of coping behaviors, according to instructions and previously established theoretical criteria.
RESULTS School Stress Components The most frequent and stressful school situations for children were: written class-test; (n ⫽ 210 responses); everyday oral quizzes; (n ⫽ 143); conflict with the teacher; (n ⫽ 41); parent-teacher meetings; (n ⫽ 40); conflict with a school-friend; (n ⫽ 37). It is important to note here, that both the “written class-test” and the “everyday oral quizzes,” however under the category of assessment in the school stress scale, were indeed experienced and described by students as the manifestations of teachers’ psychological abuse. As abusive, these behaviors were also classified by the research team designing measures for this study. These forms of assessment are intentionally used in Polish schools as a form of discipline, control, teachers’ authority and power demonstration, form of punishment, forms of emotional treats or terror. They are very common and frequent (students can have a few, different forms of assessment during one day), and usually they are given unexpectedly.
School stress
1447
Also, there are no clear assessment criteria, for teachers or for students. Especially oral testing enables teachers to abuse not only methods of assessing knowledge but also psychologically abuse students. Fear of this form of assessment was described by almost all students as a “nightmare,” and many behavioral details were included in their description of these forms of teachers’ abuse. For example, during the oral testing students must stay in front of the class, and their appearance, (hair, clothing, jewelry), family problems or intimate or romantic relationships are maliciously commented by teacher. The way questions are asked intentionally provokes students’ audience to laugh. Given grade is often not related to student’s performance but rather to student’s behavior and the teacher’s mood. This way, school assessment tends to be more of a teacher’s method of repression over students’ behavior, than an educational instrument to stimulate or control the learning progress. “Conflict with teacher” was another category, which describes a wide range of teachers’ abusive behaviors towards children. They were classified as verbally, emotionally and psychologically abusive behaviors or interactions with students. Teachers’ abusive repertoire included: (1) threats (e.g., school suspension, repetition of the same year, principal or parental intervention, etc.); (2) mockery (e.g., teacher’s request to read in front of the class badly written parts of the assignment); (3) humiliation, (e.g., comments about learning problems, low intelligence); (4) insulting (e.g., calling students as idiots, criminals, liars, sluggards); and (5) personal attacks regarding appearance, family situation, close school friends, and so on. “Conflict with a school-friend” represented various forms of interpersonal problems, and was mostly related to the school context in the form of rivalry, cribbing, toadying, bullying, and so on. “Parent-teacher meetings” ranked high on the list of school stressors because children feared severe punishment, (sometimes even physical), if their parents received teacher’s negative report about poor academic achievements or any behavioral transgressions at school (Piekarska, 1991). It is interesting that the intensity of school stress had no relationship (2, p ⫽ .2) to the frequency of the different school stress components. Children with either a low or a high level of school stress had similar frequencies of the same schools stressors. It may indicate that other stress correlates, as anxiety, temperamental characteristic or coping strategies significantly moderate the level of stress experienced. Temperamental Correlates of School Stress: Individual Differences in Regulation of Stimulation: The Mechanisms of Reactivity and Mobility of the Nervous System Processes The three dimensions of temperament measured in this study: (1) reactivity, (2) inhibition, and (3) the mobility of the nervous system processes, showed a significant negative correlation with the intensity of the stress (p ⬍ .001). However, Pearson’s coefficients for the correlations between intensity of school stress and temperament’s dimensions were low: reactivity (R ⫽ ⫺.25), inhibition (R ⫽ ⫺.24) and mobility (R ⫽ ⫺.35). The obtained results showed that high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobility of temperamental system processes are significantly associated with high intensity of school stress, as perceived by children. One can say, that this is an empirical illustration of the temperamental regulating functions in high and chronic stress situation. Children’s Coping Strategies Based on the theoretical assumptions and prior theoretical conceptualization by the author, children’s coping behaviors were divided into two empirical categories: constructive-adaptive coping behaviors and destructive-survival coping behaviors, depending on whether students perceived school stress as a challenge or as a threat. Children’s constructive-adaptive coping at school was described as generalized mobilization of energy, efforts, skills, and competencies to efficiently perform various tasks, or deal with difficult situations and experiences.
1448
A. Piekarska
The destructive-survival strategies of coping were described as low mobilization to perform tasks or deal with difficult situations, and as a high, emotional activation focused on needs to escape (from the situation) or defend threatened goods. In the tested sample only 30.6% of children used constructive-adaptive coping strategies and the other 69.4% used forms of destructive-survival coping, with the dominance of such behaviors as: (1) self-destruction (e.g., smoking cigarettes, using alcohol, drugs, inflicting various forms of self-harm to simulate illness and thus stay home, attempts of suicide as a cry for help); (2) aggression, violence (against teachers, parents, peers); and (3) avoiding, escaping, (truancy, running away from home, simulation of illness, etc.) The low mobility of the nervous system processes (p ⫽ ⬍ .02), and the high level of anxiety (p ⫽ ⬍ .02) were found as significant determinants of coping strategies used by children. Anxiety and Low School Results as Consequences of School Stress Using Pearson’s coefficient, the correlation between school stress and anxiety was significant (R ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .001). The relationship between school stress and school results (measured as grade point average) was also significant (R ⫽ ⫺.29, p ⫽ ⬍ .001). These results indicate that however the increase of the intensity of school stress was significantly related to the increase of children’s anxiety and their lower school results, some other, individual factors were influencing the strength of these relationships. Multiple-regression equations were employed to determine the role of school stress individual correlates, such as the three measured temperament’s dimensions and the anxiety level. As a result of this procedure, it was found that all mentioned factors play a significant role in regulating the child’s experience of the intensity of school stress (F ⫽ 9.70, MR ⫽ .52, p ⫽ .0001). Detailed analysis of the equation’s factors showed, that the perceived intensity of school stress is higher as the level of anxiety increases and the resistance of the nervous system decreases. A decreased resistance to stress was manifested by high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobility of the nervous processes, regulating the level of stimulation. Using ANOVA, it was determined also that perceived intensity of school stress significantly influenced children’s school results (F ⫽ 8.317, SQ ⫽ 52.221, Df ⫽ 3, MS ⫽ 7.407, p ⫽ ⬍ .0001). CONCLUSIONS This research study’s findings showed that school stress is an interesting and complex phenomenon, widely determined by school ecology. The most frequent components of school stressful factors (as perceived by students), were teachers’ behaviors and attitudes related to teaching and assessment. These behaviors were described by children and then classified by research team as psychologically or emotionally abusive, according to theoretical conceptualization and definition. Thus, in the light of this study results, school stress and particularly teachers’ behaviors and attitudes towards children should be investigated more closely. Polish, specific school context enabled us to see clearly, what is maybe invisible or hidden in other countries and their schools. This study confirmed also some of the previous research results concerning the relationship between stress and nervous system resistance. It is important to note, that in most research, the resistance is measured as a low reactivity of the nervous system processes. In this study, two other dimensions of nervous system (level of inhibition and mobility) were also investigated and confirmed as important resistance correlates, and thus as temperamental mediators regulating an individual experience of stress intensity. However, the results of this study are not fully consistent with some previous research on the temperament’s dimensions and their role played in the nervous resistance to stress.
School stress
1449
Thus, in the light of this study findings it may be considered, that the role of inhibition and mobility of the nervous system processes and its resistance to chronic stress (as it is in the case of school stress) is complex and individualized. Children’s everyday experience of high school stress consists the process of “surging” the cumulated, opposite states of activation and inhibition of nervous processes. These may tend to impede the nervous system’s ability to regulate the optimal level of stimulation. Thus, other psychological mechanisms or strategies must be applied by subjects to cope effectively with the stressful school situations, events and environment. This interpretation seems to be entitled by the results of this study concerning the destructive coping behaviors as related to the high level of stress. Brenner (1984) proved that a high intensity of stress significantly influences the effectiveness of coping strategies. It seems very possible, that chronic and intense school stress, influences a child’s behavior, development and well-being by overloading temperamental ability to regulate the level of optimal stimulation. Psychologically abused, emotionally threatened, over-stressed, over-stimulated and thus anxious or aggressive students can not concentrate on school learning. These result their low level of achievements and the use of destructive coping strategies, helpful to survive school. REFERENCES Bach-Olasik, T. (1991). Doswiadczenia szkolne zrodlem leku w opinii mlodziezy. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 6, 24 –29. Belsky, J. (1980). Child maltreatment: An ecological integration. American Psychologist, 35, 320 –335. Brenner, A. (1984). Helping children cope with stress. Massachusetts and Toronto: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath and Company. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gil, D. G. (1978). Violence against children: Physical child abuse in the United States. Cambridge, MA: University Press. Gorecka, H., & Niespoj-Roguszko, K. (1992). Telefon Zaufania. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 3, 125–128. Kicinska, M., & Klause-Jaworska, E. (1992). Uczniowie oswoich szkolach. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 78 – 85. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1987). Transactional theory and research on emotions and coping. European Journal of Personality, 1, 141. Noller, P., & Piekarska, A. (1991). To beat or not to beat? Unpublished manuscript. Piekarska, A. (1991). Przemoc w rodzinie. Agresja rodzicow wobec dzieci; przejawy i psychologiczne uwrunkowania [Family violence. Parental aggression towards children; Manifestations and psychological determinants]. Warsaw: Pracownia Testow Psychologicznych. Sosnowski, T., & Iwaniszczuk, D. (1990). Polska adaptacja Inwentarza stanu i cechy leku dla dzieci, /STAIC/. Studia Psychologiczne, 27, 68 –79. Strelau, J. (1989). The regulative theory of temperament as a result of East-West influences. In W. Carey & S. McDevitt (Eds.), Clinical and educational applications of temperament research (pp. 65–77). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Strelau, J. (1985). Unpublished STR manual. Warsaw: Pracownia Testow Psychologicznych. Szymkiewicz, B. (1988). Lekcja szkolna wdoswiadczeniu uczniow. Zagadnienia wychowawcze a zdrowie psychiczne, 4, 74 – 88. Zalewska, M. (1994). Children’s coping strategies at school. Unpublished manuscript.
Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 24, No. 11, pp. 1443–1449, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/00/$–see front matter
PII S0145-2134(00)00201-5
SCHOOL STRESS, TEACHERS’ ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS, AND CHILDREN’S COPING STRATEGIES ANNA PIEKARSKA Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
ABSTRACT Objective: This paper presents the research study on school stress and the coping strategies children use in public schools in Poland. The main goals were to identify and investigate: (1) school stress components, its frequency and intensity, (2) its psychological and temperamental correlates and consequences, (3) students’ coping strategies. Method: A field-correlative design was applied to test 271 students, between the ages of 13 and 14, using six questionnaires. School stressors and children’s coping strategies were identified and analyzed on two separate questionnaires with open-ended questions. School stress scale investigated the frequency of stress components and the intensity of stress. Anxiety level was measured by standardized, Polish version of STAIC. Temperamental characteristics were tested by the standardized questionnaire STI-R/4. Results: The most frequent stressors were teachers’ abusive behaviors in the classroom teaching and assessment. Students’ coping strategies, and their school results, were determined by the intensity of school stress, anxiety, and temperamental characteristic. Conclusions: This study demonstrated teachers’ psychological abuse as an important component of children’s school stress. An over-abundant by the abuse, stress and anxiety subjects regulate their optimal level of stimulation and activation by using survival-coping strategies, destructive for their school achievements, and well-being. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Key Words—School stress, Children’s coping behaviors, Teachers’ abusive behaviors.
INTRODUCTION THE SITUATION IN most public schools is difficult in Poland. The economic condition of schools is poor and is currently being made more obvious by the country’s transformations of social and economic systems. Educational programs are extremely overloaded and teachers’ professional motivation, competence and performance are below the expected level. Therefore, the psychosocial environment of healthy, optimal development, education and socialization of children at school is at a high risk. However, one could be led to believe that this ‘school crisis’ refers only to the specific conditions in Poland. The recent violent incidents at schools around the world indicate that school education is in a deep crisis, and the causes need to be studied urgently and carefully. Many social, political and cultural factors, such as life stress, a culture of violence, violent contents of the media, family crisis, and so forth can be pointed to as reasons for this serious situation. However, it should be noticed that there is one, important manifestation of children’s and young people’s attitudes towards school. Students simply do not like school. They either do not like their fellow students or the teachers. In fact, nobody likes school. Not the governments, with their constantly changing
Received for publication May 23, 1995; final revision received February 28, 2000; accepted March 1, 2000. Requests for reprints should be sent to Anna Piekarska, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Education, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. 1443
1444
A. Piekarska
policies and funding cuts for schools, nor parents who are unhappy with their children’s poor educational results nor teachers with their loss of status and low incomes. Therefore, maybe, instead of looking for external causes of school alarming situation and blaming them for recent school crisis we should rather study closer the physical, psychological and social school environment. This search for internal, significant factors related to complicated school dynamic may lead us to discover and understand the unknown part of children’s and young people’s lives, which is their life at school. Thus school stress, teachers’ abusive behaviors towards students as its significant components, and other important stress correlates are investigated and presented in this article.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Review of Polish Studies on School Stress Various research conducted in Polish educational institutions such as kindergartens, preschools, primary, secondary, and boarding schools in the 1980s revealed that child abuse and neglect was a widespread phenomenon and was manifested through a great variety of teachers’ abusive or neglectful attitudes and behaviors towards students (Noller & Piekarska, 1991). In a 1988 study, Szymkiewicz asked high school students to perform a psychodrama entitled “A 5 minute school lesson” (Szymkiewicz, 1988). Analysis of this study led her describe a typical characteristic of the relationship between teacher and student. Recurring themes in the students’ plays were teacher domination, constant demonstration of power, and hostility. Teachers were portrayed as mostly focused on controlling students by using threats of bad grades while students were constantly concentrated on avoiding them. Both the emotions of teachers and of students were presented as negative, with the dominance of mutual fear and lack of trust. Gorecka and NiespojRoguszko (1992) analyzed the data from “Youth Telephone” (a youth helpline) in one of the biggest Polish cities. The most abundant and important problems reported to that institution by children and teenagers were school failures, conflicts with teachers and parents concerning school performance and generally high levels of frustration, fear and anger towards school and teachers. Between 1987 and 1989, Bach-Olasik (1991) tested 1500 students (aged 15–18), from public high schools in Warsaw, with a specially prepared questionnaire. In this sample, 70% of students declared that stress, and the fear of school were dominant emotions in their school life. They reported that the most stressful factors at their schools were: (1) methods used by teachers to control learning and asses students’ knowledge, and (2) the abusive and hostile character of teachers’ attitudes and behaviors towards students, often even described as a “persecutor-victim” relationship. Students described their coping behaviors as avoidance of confrontation with teachers, withdrawal from school life, or various deception strategies. Kicinska and Klause-Jaworska (1992) asked 413 first grade high-school students (aged 15), from seven different, public schools in Warsaw, about their opinion of the new schools they had just started. Only 36% of this sample declared positive opinions about their new school, 52% declared neutral opinions, and 12% stated strongly that they found their new school settings hard to accept at all. Zalewska (1994), also studied 170 first grade high school students, however, she focused both on private and on public Warsaw schools between 1993–1994. The leading goal of this research was the to identify differences in the coping strategies used by the students in the private and public school sectors. The result of this study indicated that the type of school was a significant factor differentiating not only the character of coping strategies used, but also their effectiveness, measured by school records of grades. Students from private schools generally had better achievements (grade averages), lower levels of fear of school and more effective coping behaviors than their peers from the public schools.
School stress
1445
Stress Models, the Concept of School Stress, Its Components and Temperamental Regulation All of the reviewed research studies on children’s situation in Polish public schools clearly indicate that school stress is mostly determined by the abusive and neglectful behaviors and attitudes of teachers. In our study these behaviors were classified as abusive according to Gil’s definition of child abuse, where abuse is described as any act of commission or omission by individuals, institutions, or society as a whole, and any conditions resulting from such acts or inactions which deprive children of their equal rights and liberties and/or interfere with their optimal development (Gil, 1978). As was shown in the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987), psychological stress is always a result of a relationship between the subject and its environment. Stress depends on the subject’s cognitive evaluation of the objective stressor, and then, on its influence on the subject’s reaction. Psychological stressors can be perceived as a challenge or as a threat. Thus, according to their significance for the subject and some important, individual subject characteristics, both challenge and threat can differ in their influence on the subject’s feelings and behavior. School stress should be studied as a unique type of stress because of the involvement of children. The various, developmental needs of children are challenged by the frequency and duration of school stress factors, which significantly influence all aspects of physiological and psychological functioning. The sources, complexity, and intensity of tension for children can be better understood by employing the concept of interaction among the ecological factors in their lives. Belsky (1980) and Bronfenbrenner (1979) postulate that youngsters live simultaneously in a microsystem, an exosystem and a macrosystem and each of these ecological systems continuously interacts with and affects the others. This approach enabled us to apply Strelau’s transactional model of temperament, as a system regulating subject’s optimal level of stimulation (Strelau, 1989). According to his theory and research results, temperamental dimensions such as reactivity (the level of stimulation causing activation in the nervous system), inhibition (the level of stimulation causing inhibition), and the mobility (the dynamics of changes from activation to inhibition) play an important role as mechanisms regulating subject’s interactions with the environment. In case of school stress such temperamental regulation may play a significant role in decreasing or increasing the stress intensity, perceived and experienced by children. Therefore, we studied school stress as a complex phenomenon, using an integrative, theoretical, and methodological approach. The problem appeared even more complex as we assumed, that school stress may be considered as an institutionalized child abuse issue, when teacher’s attitudes and behaviors are intentional and perceived by the children as causing psychological harm or abuse with negative emotional consequences such as fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, or helplessness. This research study was based and designed on the theoretical assumptions discussed above. The research objectives were to examine some important theoretical issues of the concept of school stress, as well as the empirical conditions related to school stress. The main assumptions and research problems tested in the study were: School stress consists of various ecological (physical, psychological and social) factors. Among them are teacher’s abusive attitudes and behaviors, School stress intensity experienced by a child is moderated by the child’s temperamental characteristic (reactivity, inhibition and mobility of the nervous processes). Psychological effects of school stress are associated with the destructive coping strategies. Anxiety and low school achievements may also be the consequences of school stress. METHODOLOGY Subjects The study included 271 primary school students between 13 and 14 years of age, who attended six public schools in different suburbs of Warsaw.
1446
A. Piekarska
Instruments Six different questionnaires were used to detect and evaluate school stress, its components, correlates and consequences. First, difficult school situations (school stress components) and children’s coping behaviors were identified on two questionnaires which asked open-ended questions. Then, a qualitative analysis was used to categorize the data obtained. These procedures constituted a first stage of school stress measure preparation. Then, the school stress and its components: learning, assessment, teachers’ behaviors and attitudes, parental control and help regarding school problems, peers relationships, school discipline, after school additional commitments (e.g., music classes, paid work, homework, etc.), were measured by a questionnaire designed to collect data about students’ subjective feeling of the intensity of school stress. This technique included 38 questions related to stressful situations at school. Responses were on a two three-point scales, that measured the frequency of various stressors and emotional distress they caused in children. The reliability of this instrument was .89 as measured by the coefficient of Kuder and Richardson. A child’s anxiety level was measured by a standardized, Polish version of STAIC. This questionnaire was originally constructed by Spielberger and adapted for the Polish children by Sosnowski and Iwaniszczuk (1990). The subjects’ temperamental characteristics were tested using standardized Strelau‘s questionnaire STI-R/4/. This instrument measures dimensions of temperament such as: (1) reactivity, (the level of stimulation causing activation or inhibition of the nervous system processes), and (2) the mobility of nervous system processes (dynamic of the changes between activation and inhibition) (Strelau, 1985). Additionally, the students’ school results were analyzed, using the average of all grades for the previous school semester. Procedure Subjects completed the questionnaires and scales in 1990. Psychology students helped collect data including students’ school grades. Once the data had been collected, the school difficult situations and coping behavior descriptions given by the children were analyzed for the purpose of categorizing these descriptions into: (1) a school stress components; and (2) a main types of coping behaviors, according to instructions and previously established theoretical criteria.
RESULTS School Stress Components The most frequent and stressful school situations for children were: written class-test; (n ⫽ 210 responses); everyday oral quizzes; (n ⫽ 143); conflict with the teacher; (n ⫽ 41); parent-teacher meetings; (n ⫽ 40); conflict with a school-friend; (n ⫽ 37). It is important to note here, that both the “written class-test” and the “everyday oral quizzes,” however under the category of assessment in the school stress scale, were indeed experienced and described by students as the manifestations of teachers’ psychological abuse. As abusive, these behaviors were also classified by the research team designing measures for this study. These forms of assessment are intentionally used in Polish schools as a form of discipline, control, teachers’ authority and power demonstration, form of punishment, forms of emotional treats or terror. They are very common and frequent (students can have a few, different forms of assessment during one day), and usually they are given unexpectedly.
School stress
1447
Also, there are no clear assessment criteria, for teachers or for students. Especially oral testing enables teachers to abuse not only methods of assessing knowledge but also psychologically abuse students. Fear of this form of assessment was described by almost all students as a “nightmare,” and many behavioral details were included in their description of these forms of teachers’ abuse. For example, during the oral testing students must stay in front of the class, and their appearance, (hair, clothing, jewelry), family problems or intimate or romantic relationships are maliciously commented by teacher. The way questions are asked intentionally provokes students’ audience to laugh. Given grade is often not related to student’s performance but rather to student’s behavior and the teacher’s mood. This way, school assessment tends to be more of a teacher’s method of repression over students’ behavior, than an educational instrument to stimulate or control the learning progress. “Conflict with teacher” was another category, which describes a wide range of teachers’ abusive behaviors towards children. They were classified as verbally, emotionally and psychologically abusive behaviors or interactions with students. Teachers’ abusive repertoire included: (1) threats (e.g., school suspension, repetition of the same year, principal or parental intervention, etc.); (2) mockery (e.g., teacher’s request to read in front of the class badly written parts of the assignment); (3) humiliation, (e.g., comments about learning problems, low intelligence); (4) insulting (e.g., calling students as idiots, criminals, liars, sluggards); and (5) personal attacks regarding appearance, family situation, close school friends, and so on. “Conflict with a school-friend” represented various forms of interpersonal problems, and was mostly related to the school context in the form of rivalry, cribbing, toadying, bullying, and so on. “Parent-teacher meetings” ranked high on the list of school stressors because children feared severe punishment, (sometimes even physical), if their parents received teacher’s negative report about poor academic achievements or any behavioral transgressions at school (Piekarska, 1991). It is interesting that the intensity of school stress had no relationship (2, p ⫽ .2) to the frequency of the different school stress components. Children with either a low or a high level of school stress had similar frequencies of the same schools stressors. It may indicate that other stress correlates, as anxiety, temperamental characteristic or coping strategies significantly moderate the level of stress experienced. Temperamental Correlates of School Stress: Individual Differences in Regulation of Stimulation: The Mechanisms of Reactivity and Mobility of the Nervous System Processes The three dimensions of temperament measured in this study: (1) reactivity, (2) inhibition, and (3) the mobility of the nervous system processes, showed a significant negative correlation with the intensity of the stress (p ⬍ .001). However, Pearson’s coefficients for the correlations between intensity of school stress and temperament’s dimensions were low: reactivity (R ⫽ ⫺.25), inhibition (R ⫽ ⫺.24) and mobility (R ⫽ ⫺.35). The obtained results showed that high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobility of temperamental system processes are significantly associated with high intensity of school stress, as perceived by children. One can say, that this is an empirical illustration of the temperamental regulating functions in high and chronic stress situation. Children’s Coping Strategies Based on the theoretical assumptions and prior theoretical conceptualization by the author, children’s coping behaviors were divided into two empirical categories: constructive-adaptive coping behaviors and destructive-survival coping behaviors, depending on whether students perceived school stress as a challenge or as a threat. Children’s constructive-adaptive coping at school was described as generalized mobilization of energy, efforts, skills, and competencies to efficiently perform various tasks, or deal with difficult situations and experiences.
1448
A. Piekarska
The destructive-survival strategies of coping were described as low mobilization to perform tasks or deal with difficult situations, and as a high, emotional activation focused on needs to escape (from the situation) or defend threatened goods. In the tested sample only 30.6% of children used constructive-adaptive coping strategies and the other 69.4% used forms of destructive-survival coping, with the dominance of such behaviors as: (1) self-destruction (e.g., smoking cigarettes, using alcohol, drugs, inflicting various forms of self-harm to simulate illness and thus stay home, attempts of suicide as a cry for help); (2) aggression, violence (against teachers, parents, peers); and (3) avoiding, escaping, (truancy, running away from home, simulation of illness, etc.) The low mobility of the nervous system processes (p ⫽ ⬍ .02), and the high level of anxiety (p ⫽ ⬍ .02) were found as significant determinants of coping strategies used by children. Anxiety and Low School Results as Consequences of School Stress Using Pearson’s coefficient, the correlation between school stress and anxiety was significant (R ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .001). The relationship between school stress and school results (measured as grade point average) was also significant (R ⫽ ⫺.29, p ⫽ ⬍ .001). These results indicate that however the increase of the intensity of school stress was significantly related to the increase of children’s anxiety and their lower school results, some other, individual factors were influencing the strength of these relationships. Multiple-regression equations were employed to determine the role of school stress individual correlates, such as the three measured temperament’s dimensions and the anxiety level. As a result of this procedure, it was found that all mentioned factors play a significant role in regulating the child’s experience of the intensity of school stress (F ⫽ 9.70, MR ⫽ .52, p ⫽ .0001). Detailed analysis of the equation’s factors showed, that the perceived intensity of school stress is higher as the level of anxiety increases and the resistance of the nervous system decreases. A decreased resistance to stress was manifested by high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobility of the nervous processes, regulating the level of stimulation. Using ANOVA, it was determined also that perceived intensity of school stress significantly influenced children’s school results (F ⫽ 8.317, SQ ⫽ 52.221, Df ⫽ 3, MS ⫽ 7.407, p ⫽ ⬍ .0001). CONCLUSIONS This research study’s findings showed that school stress is an interesting and complex phenomenon, widely determined by school ecology. The most frequent components of school stressful factors (as perceived by students), were teachers’ behaviors and attitudes related to teaching and assessment. These behaviors were described by children and then classified by research team as psychologically or emotionally abusive, according to theoretical conceptualization and definition. Thus, in the light of this study results, school stress and particularly teachers’ behaviors and attitudes towards children should be investigated more closely. Polish, specific school context enabled us to see clearly, what is maybe invisible or hidden in other countries and their schools. This study confirmed also some of the previous research results concerning the relationship between stress and nervous system resistance. It is important to note, that in most research, the resistance is measured as a low reactivity of the nervous system processes. In this study, two other dimensions of nervous system (level of inhibition and mobility) were also investigated and confirmed as important resistance correlates, and thus as temperamental mediators regulating an individual experience of stress intensity. However, the results of this study are not fully consistent with some previous research on the temperament’s dimensions and their role played in the nervous resistance to stress.
School stress
1449
Thus, in the light of this study findings it may be considered, that the role of inhibition and mobility of the nervous system processes and its resistance to chronic stress (as it is in the case of school stress) is complex and individualized. Children’s everyday experience of high school stress consists the process of “surging” the cumulated, opposite states of activation and inhibition of nervous processes. These may tend to impede the nervous system’s ability to regulate the optimal level of stimulation. Thus, other psychological mechanisms or strategies must be applied by subjects to cope effectively with the stressful school situations, events and environment. This interpretation seems to be entitled by the results of this study concerning the destructive coping behaviors as related to the high level of stress. Brenner (1984) proved that a high intensity of stress significantly influences the effectiveness of coping strategies. It seems very possible, that chronic and intense school stress, influences a child’s behavior, development and well-being by overloading temperamental ability to regulate the level of optimal stimulation. Psychologically abused, emotionally threatened, over-stressed, over-stimulated and thus anxious or aggressive students can not concentrate on school learning. These result their low level of achievements and the use of destructive coping strategies, helpful to survive school. REFERENCES Bach-Olasik, T. (1991). Doswiadczenia szkolne zrodlem leku w opinii mlodziezy. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 6, 24 –29. Belsky, J. (1980). Child maltreatment: An ecological integration. American Psychologist, 35, 320 –335. Brenner, A. (1984). Helping children cope with stress. Massachusetts and Toronto: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath and Company. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gil, D. G. (1978). Violence against children: Physical child abuse in the United States. Cambridge, MA: University Press. Gorecka, H., & Niespoj-Roguszko, K. (1992). Telefon Zaufania. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 3, 125–128. Kicinska, M., & Klause-Jaworska, E. (1992). Uczniowie oswoich szkolach. Problemy opiekunczo-wychowawcze, 78 – 85. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1987). Transactional theory and research on emotions and coping. European Journal of Personality, 1, 141. Noller, P., & Piekarska, A. (1991). To beat or not to beat? Unpublished manuscript. Piekarska, A. (1991). Przemoc w rodzinie. Agresja rodzicow wobec dzieci; przejawy i psychologiczne uwrunkowania [Family violence. Parental aggression towards children; Manifestations and psychological determinants]. Warsaw: Pracownia Testow Psychologicznych. Sosnowski, T., & Iwaniszczuk, D. (1990). Polska adaptacja Inwentarza stanu i cechy leku dla dzieci, /STAIC/. Studia Psychologiczne, 27, 68 –79. Strelau, J. (1989). The regulative theory of temperament as a result of East-West influences. In W. Carey & S. McDevitt (Eds.), Clinical and educational applications of temperament research (pp. 65–77). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Strelau, J. (1985). Unpublished STR manual. Warsaw: Pracownia Testow Psychologicznych. Szymkiewicz, B. (1988). Lekcja szkolna wdoswiadczeniu uczniow. Zagadnienia wychowawcze a zdrowie psychiczne, 4, 74 – 88. Zalewska, M. (1994). Children’s coping strategies at school. Unpublished manuscript.