Half of teachers have seen colleagues bullied, survey shows
Bullying Work Daily Reported Either Enduring 6% Weekly At Average, Or Of On Respondents
Half of teachers have reported witnessing colleagues being bullied by other staff members, with one-third reporting being targets of bullying at least “every now and then” in their work.
A new study published on Tuesday from the Anti-Bullying Centre at Dublin City University suggests education is a sector with high levels of workplace bullying, its researchers said. They said more must be done on foot of this research to develop strategies aimed at preventing such behaviours.
The survey of 630 teachers and senior management teams in both primary and secondary schools across Ireland looks at the experiences of targets, bystanders and perpetrators of bullying at work.
On average, 6% of respondents reported enduring bullying at work either weekly or daily. A further 12% reported witnessing bullying either weekly or daily.
Being targeted for, or witnessing, bullying was more common in secondary schools than primary schools. Being ignored and excluded was one of the most common victimisation experiences reported, with 37% saying this happened “now and then”.
One third (33%) reported facing a hostile reaction when approaching others at work “now and then”, and 40% said their performance was affected by someone withholding information a similar proportion of the time. More than one third (35%) reported having gossip and rumours spread about them.
About three of the 630 respondents (0.5% of respondents) said they perpetrated bullying themselves at work either daily or weekly.
“Bullying perpetration may go unreported for several reasons, among which social desirability and unawareness that certain actions constitute bullying,” the researchers noted.
Of the respondents, three in 10 (29.2%) had one to five years of teaching experience, 17.5% had six to 10 years and more than 40% had more than 10 years' experience. More than two-thirds of respondents were teachers while 31.1% were either principals, deputy principals or year heads.
There was a fairly general split across age groups, with 20.8% of respondents aged 36-41, 13.6% aged 24-29, 14.3% aged 30-35, 16.2% aged 42-47 and 18.6% aged 48-53.
The study’s lead author Dr Angela Mazzone said: “Workplace bullying among school staff has a negative impact on a victim’s mental health. It can also affect the school climate and have a negative effect on teaching, while acting as a barrier to student learning.
“It is extremely important for us to investigate workplace bullying within the education sector so that we can develop and implement adequate prevention and intervention strategies.” Respondents with higher levels of empathy were less likely to bully others and Dr Mazzone said empathy training could be a useful tool in this regard.
She added: “We feel empathy training for school personnel may help school staff to recognise and prevent bullying at work. This type of training could also help with creating better relationships among school staff.”
The study also suggests specific supports for senior management in schools who experience bullying and that such bullying could go unreported as “bullied managers may not want to give the impression that they are unable to stand up for themselves”.