Die aard en impak van psigologiese geweld op sekondêreskool-onderwysers : riglyne vir ondersteuning

Abstract

Psychological violence is mistreatment that is severe enough to influence the target person's health, to destroy his work or total career and overstrain his relationship with his family or friends. The impact of psychological violence has compelled many a company and organization to introduce policy to stop the serious consequences thereof. It seems not to be the case in the South African education. The mixed method research design was used in this study to investigate the nature and impact of psychological violence on the health of secondary school educators in the Free State. Strategies were proposed to reduce educators' experiences of psychological violence and the impact thereof on their health. Two measuring instruments were used in this study to collect the quantitative data, namely the Revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-R) and the Symptoms Checklist. Both these measuring instruments were distributed amongst 727 secondary school educators at 82 schools in the five education districts of the Free State. The qualitative data collection was done with 32 educators. The sources of psychological violence, likewise in the literature, are management, learners and parents. Psychological violence often causes enormous stress and it leads to a situation where educators feel depressed and traumatised. The general aim of this study is to invsetigate the nature and impact of psychological violence on secondary school educators in the Free State. Some of the findings in this study are that there are not differences between men and women with regard to exposure to psychological violence; older educators experience more exposure to psychological violence; teaching experience, qualifications and ethnicity are indeed determining factors with regard to exposure. It is also possible, as appears from the findings, that here a minority group is exposed more to psychological violence. The results of both data sets, quantitative and qualitative, are mutually confirming. It was found in this study that secondary school educators indeed experience psychological violence. The assumption is that the findings of this study will help to strengthen information that will be useful for the enhancement of educator health at schools.