Perception of teachers’ violence against students from the perspective of adult students

Introduction: In this paper I discuss a qualitative study which main aim was to find out which behaviours on the part of teachers are identified by adult students as violence. Method: Eight women aged 19–21 participated in individual semi-structured interviews. I subjected the collected material to thematic analysis. Results: I identified four main themes: specific teacher behaviours perceived by pupils as violence; pupils’ interpretations of the causes of teacher violence; the consequences of teacher violence towards pupils; pupils’ making or not making interventions in relation to the violence experienced. The results show that students occasionally encountered physical violence at school, finding it difficult to identify some of the behaviours as sexual or psychological violence. The most common and hurtful behaviours classified as psychological violence included humiliation, shouting, humiliation, threatening, commenting on appearance, manipulation and breaking rules. Pupils struggle with both the somatic and emotional short- and long-term effects of experiencing violence. They attribute teachers’ violent behaviour both externally and internally. They have little faith in the effectiveness of interventions at school. Conclusions: There is a need for student participation in further research. Particular attention should be paid to psychological violence, which is underestimated and/or not obvious to both students and adults. Preventive and intervention interventions are needed both in the area of working with teachers, parents and students.