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Civility is an important construct to be addressed in relation to child and youth development. The issue of classroom incivility is of particular interest, given its potential negative impacts to both the psychosocial well-being of adolescents and the overall learning environment. Therefore, the current study sought to investigate similarities and differences between perceptions of middle and high school students and teachers. Participants consisted of 40 intermediate and high school teachers and 52 students in Grades 7-12. Both students and teachers rated uncivil behaviour in the classroom based on how serious they thought it was and how often it occurred in their classroom. Further, participants responded to open-ended questions to allow for a deeper exploration of the viewpoints and lived experiences of both students and teachers. Findings suggest that adolescent students consider uncivil behaviours that may be seen as disrespectful towards the teacher as more uncivil than do teachers themselves. Teachers tended to focus on adolescents engaging in uncivil behaviuor towards each other as being more serious as well as a focus the negative implications of classroom incivility to the learning environment. These differing perceptions of uncivil behaviour in the classroom have important implications for intervention within educational settings.

The authors investigate the personality traits of parents and children and their significant influence on the behavior of the other. Using the HEXACO model of personality, the authors examine the behavior of one hundred parent-child dyads on a playground to understand broader parent-child relationships. Their analyses reveal two opposed types of parental behavior (engaged parents versus unengaged parents) and child behavior (introverted cautious play versus autonomous energetic play) on the playground. The authors assert their study demonstrates that the personality traits of both parents and children as measured by the HEXACO model play a significant role in parental and child behaviors during play and in broader interactions.

Classroom incivility is a critical concept relating to the academic and psychosocial well-being of children and youth. However, there has yet to be research investigating whether there are social benefits to this behavior in early adolescence. Therefore, the goal of this study was to explore the relationship between classroom incivility and measures of social network position, including incoming and mutual friendships, two forms of centrality, and social network prestige. We investigated network position of 488 students between the ages of 9 and 14 (M = 11.48; SD = 1.14). Our findings highlight a general negative curvilinear association between classroom incivility and social network position. Specifically, children and youth who engage in moderate levels of classroom incivility have more friends and are leaders in the group (higher network prestige). In contrast, those who engage in higher or lower levels of classroom incivility have fewer friends and are less prestigious.

This study extended previous research published in this journal in which parental monitoring knowledge was negatively associated with tolerance of antisocial behavior in adolescents with temperamental deficits in self-regulation. In the current study, parental control (i.e., adolescent permission seeking) and adolescent self-disclosure were negatively associated with attitudinal tolerance of antisocial behavior. Additionally, Honesty-Humility and Emotionality were negatively related to antisocial attitudes, and parental control was related to tolerance of antisocial behavior only when Honesty-Humility was low. In both studies, parental behavioral control was related more strongly to antisocial attitudes when adolescents had traits that predisposed them to antisocial behavior.

Bullying is a peer relational problem that can inflict psychological harm onto both those who are victimized and those who witness it occur. Fostering a positive classroom environment is an important protective factor in preventing bullying. Authoritative classroom climates may protect victimized and bystander youth from negative mental health outcomes associated with bullying involvement. The current study examined how dimensions of authoritative classrooms -- disciplinary structure and teacher support -- moderate the relationship between bullying involvement (e.g., victimization, witnessing) and students' psychological functioning (e.g., psychosocial wellbeing, emotional problems). We explored how authoritative classroom climate may protect victimized and bystander youth across different cultural contexts. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted on two separate samples of youth, from China (2,395 students in grades 5-9, from 58 classrooms across 5 schools), and Canada (538 students in grades 5-8, from 31 classrooms across 5 schools). Findings indicated that both victimization and witnessing were associated with lower psychosocial wellbeing and higher levels of emotional problems among Chinese and Canadian youth. For Chinese youth, witnessing was less strongly associated with lower psychosocial wellbeing in classrooms with higher disciplinary structure. In contrast, witnessing was more strongly related to emotional problems and lower psychosocial wellbeing in Chinese classrooms with higher teacher support. Collectively, these findings suggest that bullying negatively affects the mental health of the broader school community across both Chinese and Canadian contexts. In more collectivist cultures, promoting classroom climates that regulate student's behaviors by enforcing discipline fairly and consistently may help lower distress among students who witness bullying.

Bystanders play a crucial role in encouraging or preventing bullying situations and feature prominently in several international antibullying programs (e.g., KiVa). Despite a surge of recent interest in bystanders, relatively little is known about the functional reasons why individuals choose to engage with or ignore bullying incidents. Given the importance of bystanders' influence on bullying, we argue that further consideration needs to be given to the individual costs and benefits of bystanders' intervention. Adolescents in our study (N = 101, M = 15.37 years) read different bullying scenarios and were then asked to respond with how the bystander would react in each scenario while considering and explaining potential personal costs and benefits. We focused on the cognitive reasoning of important factors adolescents may consider when faced with the decision of whether to intervene or not in a bullying situation. Our study provides novel evidence that adolescents engage in quite explicit cost-benefit decisions regarding their decisions of whether or not they would intervene in bullying. The content and structure of these cost-benefit decisions support an adaptive model of bullying behavior and may be helpful in developing more targeted peer-based antibullying programs.

Incivility involves rude, discourteous, and disrespectful attitudes and behaviours. The present study examined how various temperament traits were related to beliefs of classroom incivility among adolescents. The sample comprised of 222 adolescents (120 boys) between the ages of 12 and 17 (M[superscript age] = 14.07, SD = 1.54) who were recruited from various extracurricular clubs and sports teams in Southern Ontario. Both intentional and unintentional incivility were examined through separate hierarchical multiple regressions. Lower Effortful Control and lower Frustration significantly predicted unintentional incivility. In addition, lower Affiliation and lower Effortful Control significantly predicted intentional incivility. The results are discussed highlighting practical implications in educational settings, as well as suggestions for future research on incivility, given its potential associations with more negative antisocial behaviours. The results suggest that although there may be shared temperament traits of adolescents who take part in classroom incivility, a disposition for specific subtypes may differ based on the specific temperament characteristics of adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that measures adolescents' attitudes toward classroom incivility and determine whether items would reveal subscales. A sample of 549 adolescents between ages 11 and 18 (53.1% boys; M[subscript age] = 13.90, SD = 1.41) completed items written to measure attitudes toward classroom incivility. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used on one half of the randomly split sample and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the remainder. Results from both analyses suggested that two factors representing unintentional and intentional incivility might be the best factor solution. In addition, evidence for concurrent validity was found in correlations with four additional scales. Results suggest that attitudes toward classroom incivility are heterogeneous and that adolescence may be an important developmental period to address this construct. Future studies should continue psychometrically developing this scale and exploring this measure with additional antisocial beliefs and behaviors.

The authors examined whether perceptions of parents and personal mental health significantly influenced perceptions of school achievement and enjoyment in a large sample of Canadian adolescents. Responses from more than 10,000 Canadian adolescents in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey were used to create a Parental Support Index, a Mental Health Index, and a School Index. They found a significant, medium-sized effect between the parent index and the school index. They found a similar but smaller effect for mental health. The findings were consistent for adolescents across the 10 southern provinces. However, among adolescents from the two northern territories the Parental Support Index was not significant whereas demographic factors and mental health played a larger role in predicting scores on the School Index. (Contains 4 tables.)

Classroom incivility is a critical concept relating to the academic and psychosocial well-being of children and youth. However, there has yet to be research investigating whether there are social benefits to this behavior in early adolescence. Therefore, the goal of this study was to explore the relationship between classroom incivility and measures of social network position, including incoming and mutual friendships, two forms of centrality, and social network prestige. We investigated network position of 488 students between the ages of 9 and 14 (M = 11.48; SD = 1.14). Our findings highlight a general negative curvilinear association between classroom incivility and social network position. Specifically, children and youth who engage in moderate levels of classroom incivility have more friends and are leaders in the group (higher network prestige). In contrast, those who engage in higher or lower levels of classroom incivility have fewer friends and are less prestigious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined whether personality traits were related to social dominance, directly, and indirectly through bullying, in samples of Western (Canadian) and Eastern (Chinese) adolescents. Self-report measures of personality, bullying, and social dominance were completed by 442 Chinese adolescents (293 boys), ages 14 to 19 (M = 14.63, SD = 1.53), and 389 Canadian adolescents (161 boys), ages 12 to 18 (M = 14.64, SD = 1.53). It was predicted that personality traits involving arrogance and exploitativeness (i.e., low Honesty-Humility) and impulsivity (i.e., low Conscientiousness) would be indirectly associated with social dominance, through bullying, in both samples. Consistent with evolutionary psychological perspectives, Honesty-Humility was directly and indirectly related to social dominance in both samples, whereas Conscientiousness was indirectly associated through bullying in Canadian and Chinese participants. Some relations differed across cultural contexts, in line with evolutionary and ecological perspectives suggesting that the expression of predispositions toward bullying and dominance depends on the costs and benefits afforded by the environmental (cultural) context. Specifically, eXtraversion was indirectly related to social dominance through bullying only in the Chinese sample, whereas Agreeableness was directly related to social dominance only for Canadian participants. We discuss the implications of these results for future research and intervention efforts along with the need to further verify the cross-cultural validity of adolescent behavior measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Adolescent bullying is a complicated behavior that is difficult to prevent. Understanding factors that predict bullying during adolescence can help us minimize such behavior. Classroom incivility is a low-level antisocial behavior that has been discussed in the literature as being a potential predictor of bullying in adolescence. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine the longitudinal link between classroom incivility and bullying., Methods: Data for the current study was collected using quantitative surveys at two-time points, three years apart (November 2019 and November 2022) in southern Ontario, Canada. Our sample comprised 349 adolescents (51.3% boys, 46.4% girls, 0.6% other, and 1.7% preferred not to say) between the ages of 9 and 14 years old (M = 11.92 years; SD = 1.42). We utilized cross-lagged analyses to examine the stability of classroom incivility in adolescence, and the longitudinal association between classroom incivility and bullying., Results: Classroom incivility at Time 1 predicted bullying behavior at Time 2, while bullying at Time 1 did not predict classroom incivility at Time 2. Our results not only support the stability of levels of classroom incivility across time, but also provide empirical support for classroom incivility as a precursor to bullying behavior., Conclusion: Our study suggests that classroom incivility can not only negatively impact the learning environment but may also be implicated in contributing to the circumstances that promote bullying behavior in adolescence, highlighting the importance of limiting uncivil behavior before it escalates into more severe forms of behavior., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Adolescence published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Foundation for Professionals in Services to Adolescents.)