Strategies to Prevent Leaner-on-Educator Violence in South African Schools

Abstract

School violence is singled out by many researchers as an area of salient concern, both nationally and internationally. Moreover, learner-on-educator violence has become a phenomenon of great concern in schools worldwide; and no school is ruled out of this challenge. Various studies in the field of school violence focus on the safety of learners at schools, with inadequate attention paid to violence perpetrated against educators in school environments. Although some local studies on school-related violence do focus on educator-on-learner violence and the causes thereof, little or no studies have been conducted on coping strategies to deal with this concern. This literature study focused on learner-on-educator violence in South African schools and the coping strategies that educators use or can use to manage and restrict violence perpetrated against them. Located in the constructivist research paradigm, this study emanated from an empirical study by the authors on how educators, as victims of school violence, experience and understand learner-on-educator violence in the school environment. The findings of the current study revealed that South African educators use different coping strategies such as departmental directives; collegial support; in-school training programmes; monitoring of classroom access; collaboration with the school environment and participation of parents. It is concluded that these strategies are pertinent in stimulating the reduction of learner-on-educator violence in South African schools.