TY  - EJOU
AU  - Yuan,  
AU  - Yang, Yanfei 

TI  - Teacher-student relationship quality effects on school students’ bullying victimization: A serial mediation model by student-student relationship and student engagement
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 4
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - This study examined the impact of teacher-student relationship quality on students’ risk of bullying victimization and the mediating roles of student-student relationships and student engagement in this relationship. A total of 656 Chinese junior high school students (females = 361, mean age = 13.75, SD = 0.98) completed validated measures of teacher-student relationship quality, student-student relationship quality, student engagement, and bullying victimization. Regression analysis results indicated that higher teacher-student relationship quality predicted a lower risk of student bullying victimization. Serial mediating effect testing of the student-student relationship quality and student engagement revealed that these factors fully mediated the relationship between teacher-student relationship quality and bullying victimization, resulting in a lower risk of bullying victimization. The results showed that student-student relationship quality had a more substantial mediating effect than student engagement. The findings support the Socio-Ecological Framework, suggesting that within the Microsystem, interactions between individuals and their immediate environments significantly impact their behavior. Specifically, these findings suggest that good teacher-student relationships can enhance the quality of student-student relationships and student engagement, thereby preventing and reducing the occurrence of bullying victimization.
KW  - teacher-student relationship quality; bullying victimization; student-student relationship quality; student engagement; junior middle school students

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2025.069551