Violence against teachers is a phenomenon that the mass media are paying more and more attention to: from the parent who bursts into the classroom during the lesson to attack the teacher, to the stabbing of a teacher by his pupil in the Milan area news informs us of an emergency situation, where our teachers are located. Despite the events reported in the media, we still do not know the true extent of the phenomenon in our country.
In this context, Prof. Claudio Longobardi, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Turin, is coordinating a research project aimed at identifying the prevalence of forms of teacher victimization in Italian schools and the associated risk factors. Prof. Longobardi says he “began looking at the issue of violence against teachers a few years ago, working with key university institutions in the United States.”
He also adds that “abroad, the subject is already being studied, in countries such as the United States, Spain, Turkey, Finland, Taiwan and Luxembourg, while I realized that in Italy we don’t have data from academia on the dissemination of forms.” of the violence our teachers endure at school. And that’s a limitation, because the data allows us to understand the scale of the phenomenon and design more appropriate intervention strategies.” Hence the commitment “of our research group to conduct an initial nationwide survey on teacher violence, with the hope that this data will be useful for future guidelines will be useful”.
Matteo Fabris: “We have presented the data collected in the first phase of the study”
Research is still ongoing, but the first data from this survey were presented last fall at the ninth edition of the International Conferences of Community Psychology, held in Naples in the presence of male and female researchers from around the world. dr Matteo Fabris (psychologist and member of the research group), who reported on the conference, explains: “We presented the data collected in the first phase of the survey, which involved 1,106 teachers of all levels (99% of the sample taught in a public school) . Fabris points out that “up to 40% of teachers report having suffered at least one form of victimization.” For 27.4% of teachers who have suffered violence, students’ parents are the primary perpetrators, with intimidation (8th .4%) and verbal threats (7.4%) are the most commonly used forms. Followed by students, mostly males, are the perpetrators of victimization for 24% of the teachers surveyed. In this case, insults and lewd comments (13.1%) and verbal threats (10.22%) are the most common forms of violence used against teachers, but there is no shortage of physical attacks (7.6%), of which happily the vast majority goes out , do not hesitate if medical intervention is required.” And he adds: “It should be borne in mind that there are also no forms of violence, particularly verbal, by colleagues (12.2%) and School leaders (9.2%) are lacking.” The data shows that in these cases, the majority of violent offenders are women.”
Francesca Giovanna Maria Gastaldi: “The biggest risk seems to be the younger and less experienced teachers”
dr Francesca Giovanna Maria Gastaldi (researcher at the Institute of Primary Education and co-author of the study) emphasizes that “the youngest and least experienced teachers seem to be at greater risk, but we analyze other risk factors, which we will do at the end of the research.” and which will help us tailor interventions to support teachers.” The researcher, who has taught in elementary school for years, understands well the importance of prevention and support for teachers who deal with such forms of victimization in school environment and warns that “many teachers in Italy and abroad make sacrifices because of these forms.” Victims of victimization are willing to leave their jobs. You can imagine how detrimental this is to the school system.
Matteo Fabris: “Victimization in all its forms can affect the psychophysical well-being of teachers”
dr Matteo Fabris joins her and specifies: “Victimization in all its forms can affect the psychophysical well-being of teachers and this can inevitably have repercussions on the quality of teaching and on the teacher-student relationship that we have in Numerous studies have highlighted that it is a fundamental contributor to students’ emotional well-being and academic success.” He concludes, “We hope that this data will be useful for school policy to understand and combat the phenomenon.”
Prof. Longobardi: “Although the data indicate that the prevalence of forms of violence against teachers is lower in our country than in other countries.”
Finally, Prof. Longobardi recalls that “it is only partial data and the research is still ongoing”. We thank those who want to help us by filling in the anonymous questionnaire, as it allows us to get an increasingly detailed picture of the Italian situation. Finally, he clarifies: “Although the data suggests that the prevalence of forms of violence against teachers is lower in our country than in other countries, this should not prevent us from dealing with the phenomenon and trying to and to structure countermeasures.” We are available to any institution that wants to work with us in this direction. All teachers of all levels who wish to participate in the research can be reached by calling -944323531
LINK to the (anonymous) compilation of the questionnaire. We will be grateful to you for your contribution. https://forms.gle/8CbVyciCPavzhVh7A