Empowering Teacher Intention to Intervene: The Role of Self-Efficacy in Addressing Homophobic Bullying

School Mental Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-024-09694-2 ORIGINAL PAPER Empowering Teacher Intention to Intervene: The Role of Self‑Efficacy in Addressing Homophobic Bullying Salvatore Ioverno1 · Maria Rosaria Nappa2 Roberto Baiocco5 · Stephen T. Russell4 · Amy McCurdy3 · Isaac James4 · Jessica Pistella5 · Accepted: 12 July 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract Teacher interventions play a crucial role in fostering a more inclusive school climate amidst homophobic bullying incidents. However, the strategies employed by teachers and the influencing factors are understudied. This study explored individual and contextual factors associated with teachers' intentions to intervene in situations of homophobic bullying. It emphasized the role of self-efficacy and how its impact may be influenced by school efforts to combat homophobic bullying. A sample of 465 teachers (76.34% women, Age: M = 49.58, SD = 10.25) from nine primary and secondary schools in central Italy completed a scale assessing different types of behaviors they would employ in response to homophobic bullying episodes, including non-intervention, disciplinary sanctions, peer mediation, victim support, and classroom discussion. The study also examined teachers' perceived school effort to address homophobic bullying and self-efficacy in handling educational tasks and homophobic bullying situations. Age, gender, grade, training on bullying, perceived prevalence of homophobic bullying incidents, and witnessing such incidents were considered as covariates. Linear regression showed that self-efficacy (general and homophobic bullying-related) was positively associated with intentions to use all intervention types and negatively non-intervention. Non-intervention was more common among teachers who reported more homophobic bullying incidents among students, while witnessing incidents was associated with less victim support and classroom discussion. The interaction of general self-efficacy and school effort was significant for disciplinary sanctions and victim support, indicating that in schools with low effort to address bullying, low teacher efficacy was associated with fewer intentions to intervene. The findings emphasize the importance of a twofold approach: fostering a strong school effort to address homophobic bullying and offering comprehensive teacher training to enhance self-efficacy in addressing these incidents. Keywords Homophobic bullying · Teacher intentions to intervene · Teacher self-efficacy · School climate · Bullying intervention * Maria Rosaria Nappa 1 Department of Education, Roma Tre University, Via del Castro Pretorio 20, 00185 Rome, Italy Salvatore Ioverno 2 Department of Systems Medicine, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy Amy McCurdy 3 Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 1801 Congress Ave. Suite 12.200, Austin, TX 78701, USA Isaac James 4 Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 108 E Dean Keeton St., Stop A2702, Austin, TX 78712, USA 5 Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Dei Marsi 8, 00185 Rome, Italy Jessica Pistella Roberto Baiocco Stephen T. Russell Vol.:(0123456789) School Mental Health Introduction Across the world, one in six youth report being the victims of bullying: A recent national study of U.S. youth reports that 15% of high school students are bullied on school property (Clayton et al., 2023), and in a study of 13 European and Asian adolescents, 17.7% reported being bullied (Chudal et al., 2021). Among those who report any form of bullying, over one-third experience bullying victimization based on perceived or actual sexual orientation, defined as homophobic bullying (Russell et al., 2012). A U.S. study found that 7.3% of all students report homophobic bullying, while among lesbian, gay, and bisexual students, the rates range from 37 to 60% (Bucchianeri et al., 2016); similarly, a cross-national study of 30 European countries reported that among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex youth, 31.4% reported bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity (Ioverno, 2023). The detrimental effects of homophobic bullying on victims encompass a range of severe negative outcomes, including mental and physical health issues, school absenteeism, lower academic achievement, and a perceived lack of safety at school (Baiocco et al., 2015; Bishop et al., 2021; Pistella et al., 2019, 2020; Russell et al., 2012). In response to the prevalence and impact of homophobic bullying, extensive research has been conducted to develop school strategies and practices aimed at reducing health and educational disparities among LGBT youth (Russell et al., 2021). These strategies have increasingly recognized the crucial role of educators in fostering positive school environments (Ioverno, 2023). Teacher Anti‑Bullying Intervention Actions Peer victimization at school is often reported to occur between classes, on the playground, or during class, indicating that school staff have an important role to play in preventing and intervening during instances of bullying (Turner et al., 2011). However, teachers often tend to underestimate the frequency and seriousness of bullying instances (Bradshaw et al., 2007). Thus, an effective approach to reducing both general bullying and homophobic bullying in schools is to promote teacher intervention. Teachers help set expectations for classroom behavior and contribute to the overall school climate (Rudasill et al., 2018). One study showed that students who observe teachers intervening during episodes of homophobic namecalling were more likely to intervene against homophobic name-calling and to observe other classmates intervene as well (Ioverno, Nappa et al., 2022). Moreover, when LGBT students observe their teachers responding appropriately and effectively to instances of homophobic bullying, they report feeling safer and more accepted at school (Dessel et al., 2017), underlining the importance of teachers’ intervention actions for student wellbeing. Overall, research finds that teachers may respond to bullying incidents by ignoring, dismissing, and not responding (i.e., not intervening), or by active strategies. Specifically, the active or positive teacher responses include non-confrontational and confrontational approaches (Campaert et al., 2017; Nappa et al., 2021). The first category refers to individual strategies with the victim or the bully (i.e., victim support and disciplinary methods). The second category refers to strategies that involve a confrontation between victims and perpetrators facilitated by the teachers or a whole class discussion (i.e., mediation and group discussion). There have been few studies on the efficacy of these interventions, and results vary, likely due to the diversity of the samples involved and the research designs (e.g., Burger et al., 2022; Campaert et (...truncated)