Rudeness is not only a kids’ problem: Incivility against preschool teachers and its impacts

Abstract

Preschool teachers experience incivility, a mild form of violence, directed at them from different sources. These incivility experiences impact their work, and indirectly children in their care. In particular, incivility may trigger emotional, perceptual and behavioral responses, namely revenge, job insecurity, and reduced emotional resources. The impacts of perceived incivility were examined among 210 preschool teachers by means of an online questionnaire and through short interviews with teachers and family members. Incivility was noted to be positively correlated with revenge and with job insecurity, as well as with Self-Emotion Awareness and Use of Emotions, two of four Emotional intelligence (EI) sub-factors. Job insecurity was further positively correlated with Regulation of Emotions (an EI sub-factor) and with revenge. Additionally, revenge was negatively correlated with all four EI sub-factors. Interviews helped illuminate and enrich the quantitative findings. The findings bring to the foreground incivility phenomena and their impacts in early education environments, as well as the need to design processes to help preschool teachers cope with different forms and manifestations of incivility, thus allowing teachers to provide children with the best care possible.