TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING OF BULLYING IN SCHOOLS - A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Abstract

Bullying has become a crucial problem in educational systems over the last few decades. It affects the lives of millions of students in schools leaving both short-term and long-term impacts on their mental health (Garner, 2004). It has been widely reported that middle school is the prime location for bullying experiences in a student’s life including Pakistan, however, there exists a discrepancy between the perception and identification of bullying behavior among teachers and students (Unnever & Cornell, 2003). Teachers are pivotal in identifying and reducing bullying incidents in their schools therefore it is important to explore their understanding and knowledge of the phenomenon in the Pakistani context. The current study aims to explore the understanding of middle school teachers about bullying in their schools. Employing a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were carried out with a total of 20 middle school class teachers (male=10; female=10) from the government schools of Islamabad, Pakistan. All the interviews were audio-recorded. Thematic analysis was opted to analyze the transcripts comprising of participants’ verbatim. Five main themes have emerged from the analysis of the data relating to perceived definition of the bullying, forms of bullying, reasons behind bullying behavior, and strategies used by the teachers to manage bullying incidents. Our findings have reported that teachers have a different understanding of forms of bullying associated with male and female students. Additionally, several different strategies have been used by them to manage bullying among boys and girls. The current study also shed light on the urgency of bullying awareness and formal training among public school teachers to reduce bullying incidents.