Community and school violence as significant risk factors for school climate and bonding of teachers in Chile: A national hierarchical multilevel analysis.

Abstract

Community and school violence involve aggressive behaviors among youth and adults. Researchers have focused mostly on aggression among students without considering teachers as victims of violence. The study's purpose was to examine the consequences of community violence, school violence, and school climate on the levels of teacher's bonding to the school. We examined data of 5733 teachers from 510 schools in 68 different communities in Chile. We used Hierarchical Linear Modeling to examine the relationship between the individual, school, and community-level variables. We found direct associations with school bonding at the individual level for victim school violence, school climate, size and type of school, and violence in the community at the community level. Our results highlight the importance of school violence prevention from a comprehensive perspective, starting at the community level, followed by the school to provide more teacher's support.