Investigating teachers explanations for aggressive classroom discipline strategies in China and Australia

Student misbehaviour can provoke aggressive teacher management (e.g. yelling in anger), adversely effecting students? learning and attitudes toward school. To investigate this phenomenon, data were obtained from 75 Chinese (typically Eastern) and 192 Victorian (typically Western) secondary teachers who selfreported aggressive management. Results: 49 of Chinese and 59 of Australian teachers adopt aggressive behaviours rarely to sometimes; and, 9 of Chinese and 13 of Australian teachers sometimes or more frequently. The teachers were assessed for levels of support for Attribution, Attachment or Ef?cacy theory as explanations. The only signi?cant differences were found for Attachment theory with Chinese teachers reporting signi?cantly more support. National setting explained 29 of the variance independent of gender, levels of aggression and years of experience.