Social Representations of Gender-Based Aspects of Verbal Aggression among Adolescents As Perceived By Teachers

The article discusses the issue of pedagogical social perception of student aggressiveness. It emphasizes the importance of teacher's socio-perceptual images regarding the gender as- pects of student aggression in relation to preventing antisocial behavior. The article analyzes the phenomenon of verbal aggression as the most common form of aggressive behavior in an educational setting. An empirical study, based on responses from 5084 teachers (94% female, with an average age of 44.5), examines the consistency between teacher's identification of verbal aggression in boys and girls and their social perceptions of gender-based aggression. The study uses two-factor variance analysis to assess the significance of factors such as agreement with statements and frequency of verbal aggression assessment (among girls and boys). The a posteriori analysis involved a strategy of multiple inter-group comparisons using the Tukey’s test. The results showed that teachers significantly more often noted the prevalence of verbal aggression among girls compared to boys. As a result of analyzing the consistency of differentiated assessments with five generalized statements, we found that only in relation to one statement ("Girl's aggression is more 'inventive' (revenge plans, gossip, social aggression) compared to boys") respondents gave consistent differentiated assessments. For the rest of the statements analyzed, contradictions were recorded in terms of differentiated assessments of girl's and boy's verbal aggression. These findings contribute to the understanding of teacher's social perceptions of adolescent aggression and emphasize the need for further research into teacher's socio-perceptual attitudes toward student aggression.