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 schoolsin 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 withopen-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 thestandardized 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 temperamentalcharacteristic.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 usingsurvival-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 schoolsis poor and is currently being made more obvious by the country’s transformations of social andeconomic systems. Educational programs are extremely overloaded and teachers’ professionalmotivation, competence and performance are below the expected level. Therefore, the psycho-social environment of healthy, optimal development, education and socialization of children atschool is at a high risk.

However, one could be led to believe that this ‘school crisis’ refers only to the specific conditionsin Poland. The recent violent incidents at schools around the world indicate that school educationis in a deep crisis, and the causes need to be studied urgently and carefully. Many social, politicaland cultural factors, such as life stress, a culture of violence, violent contents of the media, familycrisis, and so forth can be pointed to as reasons for this serious situation. However, it should benoticed that there is one, important manifestation of children’s and young people’s attitudestowards school. Students simply do not like school. They either do not like their fellow students orthe 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. Box600, Wellington, New Zealand.

PergamonChild 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

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policies and funding cuts for schools, nor parents who are unhappy with their children’s pooreducational results nor teachers with their loss of status and low incomes.

Therefore, maybe, instead of looking for external causes of school alarming situation andblaming them for recent school crisis we should rather study closer the physical, psychological andsocial school environment. This search for internal, significant factors related to complicated schooldynamic may lead us to discover and understand the unknown part of children’s and youngpeople’s lives, which is their life at school. Thus school stress, teachers’ abusive behaviors towardsstudents as its significant components, and other important stress correlates are investigated andpresented 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 wasa widespread phenomenon and was manifested through a great variety of teachers’ abusive orneglectful attitudes and behaviors towards students (Noller & Piekarska, 1991).

In a 1988 study, Szymkiewicz asked high school students to perform a psychodrama entitled “A5 minute school lesson” (Szymkiewicz, 1988). Analysis of this study led her describe a typicalcharacteristic of the relationship between teacher and student. Recurring themes in the students’plays were teacher domination, constant demonstration of power, and hostility. Teachers wereportrayed as mostly focused on controlling students by using threats of bad grades while studentswere constantly concentrated on avoiding them. Both the emotions of teachers and of students werepresented as negative, with the dominance of mutual fear and lack of trust. Gorecka and Niespoj-Roguszko (1992) analyzed the data from “Youth Telephone” (a youth helpline) in one of thebiggest Polish cities. The most abundant and important problems reported to that institution bychildren and teenagers were school failures, conflicts with teachers and parents concerning schoolperformance 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 publichigh schools in Warsaw, with a specially prepared questionnaire. In this sample, 70% of studentsdeclared that stress, and the fear of school were dominant emotions in their school life. Theyreported that the most stressful factors at their schools were: (1) methods used by teachers tocontrol learning and asses students’ knowledge, and (2) the abusive and hostile character ofteachers’ 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 inWarsaw, about their opinion of the new schools they had just started. Only 36% of this sampledeclared positive opinions about their new school, 52% declared neutral opinions, and 12% statedstrongly that they found their new school settings hard to accept at all. Zalewska (1994), alsostudied 170 first grade high school students, however, she focused both on private and on publicWarsaw schools between 1993–1994. The leading goal of this research was the to identifydifferences 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 notonly the character of coping strategies used, but also their effectiveness, measured by schoolrecords of grades. Students from private schools generally had better achievements (grade aver-ages), lower levels of fear of school and more effective coping behaviors than their peers from thepublic schools.

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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 indicatethat 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 societyas a whole, and any conditions resulting from such acts or inactions which deprive children of theirequal rights and liberties and/or interfere with their optimal development (Gil, 1978).

As was shown in the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987), psychologicalstress is always a result of a relationship between the subject and its environment. Stress dependson the subject’s cognitive evaluation of the objective stressor, and then, on its influence on thesubject’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 characteris-tics, 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. Thevarious, developmental needs of children are challenged by the frequency and duration of school stressfactors, which significantly influence all aspects of physiological and psychological functioning. Thesources, complexity, and intensity of tension for children can be better understood by employing theconcept 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 macrosystemand 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 systemregulating subject’s optimal level of stimulation (Strelau, 1989). According to his theory and researchresults, temperamental dimensions such as reactivity (the level of stimulation causing activation in thenervous system), inhibition (the level of stimulation causing inhibition), and the mobility (the dynamicsof changes from activation to inhibition) play an important role as mechanisms regulating subject’sinteractions with the environment. In case of school stress such temperamental regulation may play asignificant 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, thatschool stress may be considered as an institutionalized child abuse issue, when teacher’s attitudesand behaviors are intentional and perceived by the children as causing psychological harm or abusewith negative emotional consequences such as fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, or helplessness.

This research study was based and designed on the theoretical assumptions discussed above. Theresearch objectives were to examine some important theoretical issues of the concept of schoolstress, as well as the empirical conditions related to school stress. The main assumptions andresearch problems tested in the study were:

School stress consists of various ecological (physical, psychological and social) factors. Amongthem are teacher’s abusive attitudes and behaviors,

School stress intensity experienced by a child is moderated by the child’s temperamental charac-teristic (reactivity, inhibition and mobility of the nervous processes).

Psychological effects of school stress are associated with the destructive coping strategies. Anxietyand 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 attendedsix public schools in different suburbs of Warsaw.

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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 wereidentified on two questionnaires which asked open-ended questions. Then, a qualitative analysiswas used to categorize the data obtained. These procedures constituted a first stage of school stressmeasure preparation.

Then, the school stress and its components: learning, assessment, teachers’ behaviors andattitudes, parental control and help regarding school problems, peers relationships, school disci-pline, after school additional commitments (e.g., music classes, paid work, homework, etc.), weremeasured by a questionnaire designed to collect data about students’ subjective feeling of theintensity of school stress. This technique included 38 questions related to stressful situations atschool. Responses were on a two three-point scales, that measured the frequency of variousstressors and emotional distress they caused in children. The reliability of this instrument was .89as measured by the coefficient of Kuder and Richardson.

A child’s anxiety level was measured by a standardized, Polish version of STAIC. Thisquestionnaire was originally constructed by Spielberger and adapted for the Polish children bySosnowski and Iwaniszczuk (1990).

The subjects’ temperamental characteristics were tested using standardized Strelau‘s question-naire STI-R/4/. This instrument measures dimensions of temperament such as: (1) reactivity, (thelevel of stimulation causing activation or inhibition of the nervous system processes), and (2) themobility 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 theprevious school semester.

Procedure

Subjects completed the questionnaires and scales in 1990. Psychology students helped collectdata including students’ school grades. Once the data had been collected, the school difficultsituations and coping behavior descriptions given by the children were analyzed for the purpose ofcategorizing these descriptions into: (1) a school stress components; and (2) a main types of copingbehaviors, 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 5 210responses); everyday oral quizzes; (n 5 143); conflict with the teacher; (n 5 41); parent-teachermeetings; (n 5 40); conflict with a school-friend; (n 5 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 anddescribed by students as the manifestations of teachers’ psychological abuse. As abusive, thesebehaviors 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 emotionaltreats or terror. They are very common and frequent (students can have a few, different forms ofassessment during one day), and usually they are given unexpectedly.

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Also, there are no clear assessment criteria, for teachers or for students. Especially oral testingenables teachers to abuse not only methods of assessing knowledge but also psychologically abusestudents. Fear of this form of assessment was described by almost all students as a “nightmare,” andmany behavioral details were included in their description of these forms of teachers’ abuse. Forexample, 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 com-mented 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 theteacher’s mood. This way, school assessment tends to be more of a teacher’s method of repressionover students’ behavior, than an educational instrument to stimulate or control the learningprogress. “Conflict with teacher” was another category, which describes a wide range of teachers’abusive behaviors towards children. They were classified as verbally, emotionally and psycholog-ically abusive behaviors or interactions with students.

Teachers’ abusive repertoire included: (1) threats (e.g., school suspension, repetition of the sameyear, principal or parental intervention, etc.); (2) mockery (e.g., teacher’s request to read in frontof the class badly written parts of the assignment); (3) humiliation, (e.g., comments about learningproblems, low intelligence); (4) insulting (e.g., calling students as idiots, criminals, liars, slug-gards); and (5) personal attacks regarding appearance, family situation, close school friends, and soon. “Conflict with a school-friend” represented various forms of interpersonal problems, and wasmostly 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 severepunishment, (sometimes even physical), if their parents received teacher’s negative report aboutpoor academic achievements or any behavioral transgressions at school (Piekarska, 1991).

It is interesting that the intensity of school stress had no relationship (x2, p 5 .2) to the frequencyof the different school stress components. Children with either a low or a high level of school stresshad 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 ofstress experienced.

Temperamental Correlates of School Stress: Individual Differences in Regulation ofStimulation: 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 theintensity of the stress (p , .001). However, Pearson’s coefficients for the correlations betweenintensity of school stress and temperament’s dimensions were low: reactivity (R 5 2.25),inhibition (R 5 2.24) and mobility (R 5 2.35).

The obtained results showed that high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobility of tempera-mental system processes are significantly associated with high intensity of school stress, asperceived by children. One can say, that this is an empirical illustration of the temperamentalregulating 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-adaptivecoping behaviors and destructive-survival coping behaviors, depending on whether studentsperceived school stress as a challenge or as a threat.

Children’s constructive-adaptive coping at school was described as generalized mobilization ofenergy, efforts, skills, and competencies to efficiently perform various tasks, or deal with difficultsituations and experiences.

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The destructive-survival strategies of coping were described as low mobilization to performtasks 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 theother 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 ofself-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 5 , .02), and the high level of anxiety(p 5 , .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 5 .30,p , .001). The relationship between school stress and school results (measured as gradepoint average) was also significant (R 5 2.29, p 5 , .001). These results indicate that howeverthe increase of the intensity of school stress was significantly related to the increase of children’sanxiety and their lower school results, some other, individual factors were influencing the strengthof these relationships.

Multiple-regression equations were employed to determine the role of school stress individualcorrelates, such as the three measured temperament’s dimensions and the anxiety level. As a resultof this procedure, it was found that all mentioned factors play a significant role in regulating thechild’s experience of the intensity of school stress (F 5 9.70,MR 5 .52, p 5 .0001).

Detailed analysis of the equation’s factors showed, that the perceived intensity of school stressis higher as the level of anxiety increases and the resistance of the nervous system decreases. Adecreased resistance to stress was manifested by high reactivity, low inhibition and low mobilityof the nervous processes, regulating the level of stimulation.

Using ANOVA, it was determined also that perceived intensity of school stress significantlyinfluenced children’s school results (F 5 8.317,SQ5 52.221,Df 5 3, MS5 7.407,p 5 , .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 (asperceived 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 psychologicallyor emotionally abusive, according to theoretical conceptualization and definition.

Thus, in the light of this study results, school stress and particularly teachers’ behaviors andattitudes towards children should be investigated more closely. Polish, specific school contextenabled 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 relationshipbetween stress and nervous system resistance. It is important to note, that in most research, theresistance is measured as a low reactivity of the nervous system processes. In this study, two otherdimensions of nervous system (level of inhibition and mobility) were also investigated andconfirmed as important resistance correlates, and thus as temperamental mediators regulating anindividual experience of stress intensity.

However, the results of this study are not fully consistent with some previous research on thetemperament’s dimensions and their role played in the nervous resistance to stress.

1448 A. Piekarska

Thus, in the light of this study findings it may be considered, that the role of inhibition andmobility of the nervous system processes and its resistance to chronic stress (as it is in the case ofschool stress) is complex and individualized. Children’s everyday experience of high school stressconsists the process of “surging” the cumulated, opposite states of activation and inhibition ofnervous processes. These may tend to impede the nervous system’s ability to regulate the optimallevel of stimulation. Thus, other psychological mechanisms or strategies must be applied bysubjects 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 destructivecoping behaviors as related to the high level of stress. Brenner (1984) proved that a high intensityof stress significantly influences the effectiveness of coping strategies. It seems very possible, thatchronic and intense school stress, influences a child’s behavior, development and well-being byoverloading temperamental ability to regulate the level of optimal stimulation.

Psychologically abused, emotionally threatened, over-stressed, over-stimulated and thus anxiousor aggressive students can not concentrate on school learning. These result their low level ofachievements and the use of destructive coping strategies, helpful to survive school.

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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

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Sosnowski, T., & Iwaniszczuk, D. (1990). Polska adaptacja Inwentarza stanu i cechy leku dla dzieci, /STAIC/.StudiaPsychologiczne, 27, 68–79.

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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.

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