Bullying on teachers in Trade Schools

Abstract

The aim of this study was to try and investigate whether bullying on teachers by their students is common in Trade Schools in Malta. In order to do so, questionnaires where distributed in four trade schools, three of which being boys trade schools and one being a mixed trade school. In all, 200 questionnaires were delivered amongst teachers, and of these 200, 159 were collected for analysis. With the help of these questionnaires one was to analyse a number of different aspects having to do with bullying. This included, what form of bully abuse teachers normally experience, the frequency of such bullying behaviour, the frequency of intervention by senior staff and also the type of interventions applied by senior staff. The result generated by these questionnaires showed that more than half the teachers in Trade Schools (52 percent) experienced some kind of bullying in their teaching career. Of these 52 percent, 45.2 percent were bullied in their last scholastic year. Also, the most common type of bully abuse used by students turned out to be verbal abuse.