Presenter(s)

• Mary Luck
• Natalie LaDuke, Assistant Professor, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
• Evan Harrington, Associate Professor, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
• Keeshawna Brooks, School Psychology Professor

Abstract

Childhood bereavement affects approximately one in 12 children in the United States (Burns et al., 2020). Following the death of a loved one, children may express their grief in a variety of ways which may be disruptive or challenging in school (Linder et al., 2022). At school, teachers serve as important supportive adults (Greiner et al., 2022), though teachers report feeling unprepared to support bereaved students (Case et al., 2020). This research aimed to assess how teachers perceive common grief behaviors expressed among students. An experiment was developed to replicate work by Eisma (2018) and Eisma et al. (2019) using an online survey with vignettes describing students engaging in behavioral manifestations of grief followed by three measures assessing stigma. Participants included 68 teachers assigned to an experimental condition that either did or did not provide context of the student’s grief. According to results, teachers who were unaware of the student’s grief rated the student as significantly less emotionally stable, more in need of help, and more dangerous. They also reported significantly higher levels of anger, stronger prosocial emotion, and a greater desire for social distance from the student based on their behavior. Findings suggest that grief-related behaviors may be misattributed or stigmatized when the context of loss is unknown. These results can inform future research in the areas of stigma and grief, and they may also help school psychologists support teachers through training and professional development aimed to help recognize signs of grief, support grieving students, and ultimately reduce grief stigma in school settings.