Teachers’ Safety and Workplace Victimization: A Socioecological Analysis of Teachers’ Perspective

ABSTRACT

School violence research has broadly overlooked violence directed at teachers. Despite recent growing acknowledgment of teachers’ workplace victimization and concerns regarding the potential costs of the problem worldwide, teachers’ perceptions of safety and risk of workplace victimization have not been sufficiently studied. To fill this gap, this study employed a socioecological approach using qualitative measures to study teachers’ perceptions of risk and protective factors associated with workplace victimization and safety. Thirty-six in-depth interviews with teachers revealed antecedents of workplace victimization and safety both inside and outside the school setting at the individual, organizational, communal, and societal levels. We highlight practice guidelines involving teachers, students, parents, school social and organizational climates, policy, and societal norms.

KEYWORDS:

• School violence
• school safety
• school climate
• organizational climate
• school policy
• teacher workplace victimization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation under Grant No. 893/18.

Notes on contributors

Ruth Berkowitz

Ruth Berkowitz, PhD, a senior lecturer (tenured) in the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on school climate and the relationships to students' social, emotional and academic outcomes, the academic achievement gap, school violence and bullying.

Naama Bar-on

Naama Bar-on Shmilovitch is a PhD candidate in the Department of Human Services at the University of Haifa. She holds an LLB in Law and an MA in Human Services. Her research interests are diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations, employment relations and labour law.

Shay Tzafrir

Shay Tzafrir is the Dean of teaching and learning and professor at Haifa School of Business Administration, University of Haifa. He emphasizes his research on people management and on the interface between trust, human capital and the stakeholders’ behavior, in particular.

Guy Enosh

Guy Enosh is a Professor of Social Work, academic head of the University programs for the Ultra-Orthodox, and Chair of the University of Haifa Institutional Ethics Committee for Research with Human Beings.