Proceedings of the 5th Global Conference on Education and Teaching
Year: 2023
DOI:
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School Violence: Teachers’ Experiences and Coping Strategies
Charity Okeke, Simphiwe Windvoël
ABSTRACT:
School violence against teachers is becoming a daily phenomenon in South African schools. Teachers feel stressed, depressed, unsafe, and demotivated to carry on their teaching duties. This problem has impacted teaching and learning and the entire educational system in South Africa. The study applied routine activity theory to clarify likely factors motivating perpetrators (learners) to target and attack their victims (teachers) in the absence of capable guardians. The qualitative study adopted a phenomenological case study design to establish teachers’ lived experiences of school violence and their coping strategies to improve teaching practices in schools. The sample size comprised eight purposively selected high school teachers who had experienced one form of violence at a Free State Province school. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, transcribed, and analyzed following Braune and Clarke’s thematic analysis steps. Findings indicate that teachers were emotionally stressed and demotivated, given their experiences of school violence. Additional data showed that teachers in the study expressed strong feelings of insecurity while performing their teaching duties and were ashamed to report violent incidents to authorities. With regards to the coping strategies, findings showed that counseling services, time off work or leave, and the campaigns against school violence are supportive. Based on these findings, it was concluded that the incidences of school violence experienced by teachers could be reduced or even eliminated if effective coping and intervention were put in place by the Department of Basic Education (DoBE).
keywords: coping strategies, phenomenological case study, routine activity theory, school violence, teachers experiences