DIE WELT (Germany)
A new survey of teachers in Germany found that 17.4% of them say they have been bullied -- and students are not the main culprit.
Classroom anxiety. Photo dcJohn
The survey conducted by Professor Reinhold Jäger of the University of Koblenz-Landau recorded the experiences of 1,831 German teachers. According to Die Welt, 54% of teachers who have been bullied say school management is behind the bullying, while 48% say the source is colleagues. Parents of students were given as the third largest source.
Mobile phones, e-mails and chat rooms offer new ways to spread rumors about people or harass them indirectly. Direct bullying is less subtle, and includes physical aggression, verbal attacks and shunning.
Teachers have a 28% more chance of being bullied in primary school than at secondary levels. Teachers in their 40s and up have a 56% higher chance of being bullied than younger teachers, and women 38% more than men.
Eight percent of those who were bullied said it took place over the Internet while 59% said it was direct with incidents. The forms it took were: gossip (54.7%), pressure (54.7%), being ignored (46.9%), being excluded (46.7%) and criticism of their work (54.4%).
Addressing the question of whether training teachers to deal with bullying helped to protect them from becoming targets, Professor Jäger found that this was mostly not the case. However, when schools introduced anti-bullying programs to raise general awareness about harassment and violence the chances of being bullying were reduced by half.
According to the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), "bullying doesn’t just happen, it’s the result of staff being unaware of the problem, badly organized work schedules, poor working atmosphere.”
