Understanding Teacher-targeted Bullying: Commenters’ Views

• Main Author: Corene de Wet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) 2019-06-01
• Series: BCES Conference Books
• Subjects: commenters; definition; educator-targeted bullying; postings; social media; teacher-targeted bullying
• Online Access: http://bces-conference-books.org/onewebmedia/2019.094-100.Corene%20de%20Wet.pdf

This paper reports on findings from a qualitative content analysis of Internet commenters’ postings on teacher-targeted bullying (TTB). Postings on the website The Educator’s Room were used as data. The study found that the commenters perceive TTB to be a serious and escalating problem characterised by an imbalance of power and an intention to do harm, and consider it repetitive and enduring in nature. The study furthermore found that the commenters view TTB as the physical and verbal abuse of teachers by their learners. This study has shown that, despite ethical dilemmas, social media can be a rich data source when investigating TTB. It is concluded that individual teachers’ postings about their public and private humiliation and pain are globalised and made accessible to researchers and laypersons alike through use of a medium that transcends borders.