Balancing risk and professional identity,secondary school teachers’ narratives of violence

Introduction

Violence in schools is increasingly recognized as a social problem (Debarbieux, 2003). In particular, ‘violent’ pupil behaviour targeted at teachers is currently seen as having a negative impact on the profession. Zeira et al. (2004: 150) emphasize how teachers experience, feel and perceive violence may impact upon their teaching performance, on their relationships with their students and on the school’s overall social climate. Steffgen and Ewen (2007) suggest that violence can impact upon teachers’ emotional and physical well-being. Concern about violence against teachers is not unique to the UK and countries such as the USA (Dinkes at al., 2009), Canada (Wilson et al., 2011) and Australia (Potts, 2006) have also identified it as a growing concern. Research on violence against teachers has also been conducted across a number of other European countries (Smith, 2003) including Luxembourg (Steffgen and Ewen, 2007), Germany (Varbelow, 2003 cited in Steffgen, 2009) and France (Blaya, 2006). While there is no central register of violent incidents that take place in British schools (Wright and Keetley, 2003), a number of quantitative surveys indicate that teachers are increasingly being exposed to violence in the course of their work (e.g. Teacher Support Network, 2005).

While some professionally sponsored surveys indicate a growing problem of ‘violence’ and indiscipline (see Neill, 2001, 2008), other surveys have suggested that interpreting violence as increasingly prevalent overestimates the severity and scale of the problem (Budd, 1999, 2001; Upson, 2004; Waddington et al., 2006). It has been argued that, rather than increased levels of actual violence, higher recorded rates can be as a result of increased sensitivity to violence more generally and less tolerance of ‘violent’ actions (Estrada at al., 2010). Waddington et al. (2006: 6) suggest that there is a need for caution when considering the extent of workplace violence due to potential media exaggeration of this phenomenon. The British Crime Survey data support this position and specialized surveys on Workplace Violence (e.g. Budd, 1999, 2001; Upson, 2004) indicate the ‘problem’ has not been as widespread as professional bodies and the media would have us believe. On the other hand, Jones et al. (2011) who conducted a Workplace Behaviour Survey in 2008 suggest that the British Crime Survey data are premised on a particular definition of workplace violence. They argue that respondents being asked questions about crime more broadly may not consider their experiences of workplace violence in this context and therefore it is not recorded adequately by this type of survey. Shepherd (1990) emphasizes the inadequacies of national crime surveys in fully capturing the prevalence and experience of violence.

A further issue is underreporting of workplace violence. One widely accepted estimate is that, at best, ‘1 in 5 incidents are reported’ (Mayhew, 2002: 22). Mayhew states there are four factors behind people’s decisions to report or not report violence at work: injury severity; departmental jurisdictions; differing origins of violence; and job insecurity (Mayhew, 2002: 22–23). Jones et al. (2011: 160) suggest that quantitative studies can often neglect the subjective nature of violence and variations in the way that violence is defined individually and in different contexts, for example, occupational cultures. Waddington et al. (2006) support this and argue that qualitative studies allow for a more in depth account of those involved. Using qualitative data this article aims to examine further secondary school teachers’ ¹ conceptualizations of violence in the workplace to try and identify whether this is an increasing problem. In addition, by drawing on current workplace literature that explores notions of fear and risk of violence in the process of one’s work, it seeks to understand the frameworks and narratives within which teachers’ experiences are understood.

Defining Violence

Disagreements about the extent of violence experienced by teachers (and indeed other occupations) may be partly related to discussion about what constitutes ‘workplace’ violence (Stanko, 2003; Tombs, 2007; Waddington et al., 2005). Early studies on violence tended to be restrictive, limiting the term merely to physical acts (Levi et al., 2007). This approach has been criticized for not fully considering the context in which violence occurs, nor how it impacts upon the victim. More recently, within the literature on workplace violence, there has been a shift towards more inclusive definitions of violence which include verbal abuse and threatening behaviour (Bowie, 2002).

Similar disagreements have arisen in relation to violence in schools. One of the initial definitions to be developed in relation to violence in schools was by Olewus (1999 cited in Smith, 2003: 4) who viewed violence as ‘aggressive behaviour where the actor or perpetrator uses his or her own body or an object (including a weapon) to inflict (relatively serious) injury or discomfort upon another individual’. This again links to purely physical acts and fails to incorporate threatening and intimidating behaviour. Other definitions have emphasized a need to include broader forms of violence including verbal abuse and harassment (Debarbieux, 2003). It is argued by Munn et al. (2007: 54) that one of the key problems with using the term violence in schools is that it can be used interchangeably with little differentiation made between different categories of behaviour (Munn et al., 2007). Despite favouring the use of an inclusive definition of workplace violence, Waddington et al. (2005) have argued that researchers must use caution when applying the term ‘violence’ and be more distinctive in which labels are attached to what behaviours. These authors propose that some incidents would be better defined as ‘conflicts’ or ‘disputes’. Waddington et al. are also wary of making assumptions about the ‘intention’ on the act by the perpetrator/s from a one-sided perspective, that is, that of the victims and suggest that to be ‘violent’ an act has to be ‘interpersonal and intentional’ (Tombs, 2007: 540).

Tombs (2007) is critical of this approach when discussing workplace violence and implies that this allows dominant vocabularies of violence to be applied. This is problematic in the sense that it fails to acknowledge appropriately the experience of the individual and assists in allowing organizations/workplaces to dismiss or undermine violence that does occur. These debates can also be applied to discussions about violence in schools, where there is a reluctance to use the word violence in educational settings (Hayden and Martin, 2011).

Our definition of violence emerged from examining other definitions of workplace violence, for example, that offered by the Health and Safety Executive and other relevant bodies such as the National Association of Head Teachers. The definition applied in our research was: ‘Any incident, in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work as a secondary school teacher that was perpetrated by pupils, colleagues or members of the public.’ We also decided early in the research process that we did not want to limit the definition to purely physical acts. We believed that as the quantitative phase of the research was first and we would have no direct contact with participants, it was better to provide a definition of the types of behaviour that could be seen as violent. Also, the use of a broader definition was justified, as what seemed to most impact upon teachers were issues of verbal abuse, intimidation and harassment. It should be noted though, that physical contact (pushing, kicking, hitting) was also frequently reported (by 68 per cent of respondents in the quantitative study; see Martin et al., 2011). A more comprehensive definition allowed teachers to provide a detailed account of a variety of the interactions that they perceived to impact upon their daily work-life. Also, we asked all those being interviewed their views of the definition that we had applied and all except two respondents agreed that it allowed for most of the experiences that teachers would face in school. ² While most of these incidents did not result in serious injury, ignoring them would mean failing to understand adequately or interpret teachers’ experiences.

Debarbieux (2006) suggests it is not necessarily the seriousness of an incident that needs consideration but rather the frequency and repetitive nature of acts which can have a greater impact on individuals. Debarbiuex argues that this ‘micro-violence’, as he describes it, needs to be considered and that even incidents of seemingly little importance can have greater significance when they are continual and recurring. Waddington et al. (2006: 169) in their research with police officers, accident and emergency staff, social workers and mental health professionals made parallels between the experiences of workplace violence and fear of crime stressing that fear, once seen as irrational, is often actually well founded. Applying the signal crimes approach (Innes, 2003, 2004 cited in Waddington et al., 2006), it is argued that continual or frequent exposure to minor incivility can ‘signal’ to workers that they are under threat and it can be the potential risks of future incidents that make workers feel insecure.

Fear and Risk of Violence in the Workplace

It is this ‘fear’ or ‘risk’ of violence that can shape how individuals perceive or experience the threat of workplace violence (O’Beirne et al., 2004). Beck (1992) identified that we are now living in a ‘risk society’, arguing that we live in a period dominated by increasing concerns about risk, for example, global threats such as terrorism, nuclear war, global warming and crime. This fear of danger and perception by governments that we are facing risks permeates populations, who in turn demand to be protected. This is compounded by the fact that society is more individualistic, and we have seen communities and social bonds breaking down. This disintegration of community and the notion that we are living in high-crime societies (Garland, 2001) mean people’s fears of being exposed to incidents of crime or attack are heightened. However, fear of crime, like violence, is also a contested construct. Again, official crime surveys have tended to apply it in a simplistic manner, measuring people’s current levels of anxiety or worry about particular incidents of crime (Sparks, 1992). Linked to this has been the tendency to view some of those responding to such surveys (particularly women and the elderly) as over-estimating the likelihood that they will at some point experience crime (Lupton and Tulloch, 1999; Sparks, 1992). From this perspective, fear of crime is often viewed as ‘irrational’. Lupton and Tulloch (1999) suggest there have been critics to this approach, most notably the Left Realists who proposed that people’s fear of crime is probably more likely to be embedded in their everyday lived experiences. For example, Young (1987: 337) argues that: ‘popular conceptions of crime and policing are in the main, constructed out of the material experiences of people rather than fantasies impressed upon them by the mass media or agencies of the State’. While this perspective is seen as having some validity, Sparks (1992) suggests that in this realist position the notion of ‘rationality’ is based solely on tangible experiences leading to fear of crime. Sparks (1992: 127) suggests that people’s fear of crime cannot simply be fully explained along the lines of rationality or irrationality, nor can people easily calculate the likelihood that they may be exposed to crime, rather crime is more about a ‘set of intuitions’ embedded in experience. This perspective is supported by Lupton and Tulloch (1999: 521) who argue that:

fear of crime operates at a number of different levels of meanings and consciousness, emerging from and constantly reactive to direct personal experiences, knowledge about other others’ experiences and mediated sources of information, and also fitting into broader narratives concerning anxieties about ‘the way society is today’.

Therefore someone’s ‘fear or crime’ or in this context ‘fear of violence’ will vary according to a number of variables, including occupation and how that occupation is perceived. O’Beirne et al. (2004), examining probation officers’ ‘fear of violence’ as an indicator of risk, found that the changing professional environments of the probation officers in conjunction with their personal roles and work environments and level of knowledge about a situation were influential in how probation officers interpreted ‘fear’. Mawby and Worrall (2011) in their analysis of probation occupational cultures indicate that the concept of ‘edgework’ (Lyng, 1990) is relevant when examining how risk is interpreted and dealt with in the course of one’s work. They argue that it is this sense of getting close to a boundary but being able to exercise control when dealing with a risky situation, like a potentially violent client, that determines how one will react. Probation officers believed that they could read situations and apply their professional skills to manage it. However, there was also the possibility that they could read the interaction wrong, and expose themselves to the risk of violence (Mawby and Worrall, 2012). Similarly O’Beirne et al. (2004: 119) identified that probation officers could harness their fear in order to promote a ‘veneer of confidence’ which enables them to do their job despite certain insecurities. Denny (2010), examining social care staff, identified both positive and negative approaches to risk when approaching a potentially violent situation. He found that having a negative view of risk could have a detrimental impact on professional practice. Stanley and Goodard (1990 cited in Denny, 2010: 1308) stated that child protection workers who found themselves most intimidated by potential clients were less likely to get management support which could also affect their ability to protect children adequately. However, an overestimation of safety could also lead to negative consequences, where workers find themselves in situations of danger because they have not appreciated the risks they potentially face.

As well as the particular characteristics of one’s occupation other factors are also relevant in relation to conceptualizations of workplace violence. In their research with Anglican priests, Denny et al. (2008) indentified a strong sense of vulnerability depending on the location that priests worked, whether urban or rural, with urban priests feeling more vulnerable to violence. The inability to draw a line between their public and private lives, particularly where they lived in close proximity to their workplace, added to their sense of vulnerability as did their perceptions about their declining social position which was seen as potentially exposing them to violence. Overall Denny et al. believe that individual, social and organizational factors need to be taken into account when considering violence in the course of work. This is also relevant when discussing violence against teachers as previous studies into violence in schools have suggested this can be dependent on the broader context of the school environment and school ethos (Rutter et al., 1979; Watkins et al., 2007).

School environments have changed in recent years and the way that misbehaviour in schools is perceived has also shifted. This is clearly evident in schools in the USA where schools have witnessed the adoption of criminal justice mechanisms in order to reduce the ‘risk’ of violence or other related behaviours (e.g. drug taking) (Kupchik, 2010; Monahan and Torres, 2010). Kupchik proposes that the plethora of strategies to deal with potential crime and violence, such as surveillance cameras, school resources officers, ³ zero-tolerance strategies, scanners and strict attendance monitoring through the use of technology are an over-reaction to the actual levels of violence in school. However, these strategies are often justified by policy-makers on the grounds of ‘fear of crime’, which, has featured heavily on agendas in the USA, including education (Simon, 2007). Similar concerns about growing levels of bad behaviour in UK schools has also changed the context of schools, the use of CCTV has spread in recent years and more attention has been paid to crime prevention mechanisms in place in schools (Hayden and Martin, 2011). Adopting crime control strategies could suggest to teachers that they are operating in more risky environments than previously. In addition, strategies that suggest the likelihood of crime or anti-social behaviour indicate a ‘morality of low expectation’ (Furedi, 1997). This perception could impact upon teachers’ expectations of young people and their behaviour meaning that they are more conscious of incidents of violence in schools. The remainder of this article outlines teachers’ narratives of violence to examine whether any continuities exist in how other occupations have interpreted their experiences of violence and whether these broader shifts in education have impacted upon how teachers discuss their experiences.

The Study

The data reproduced in this article are drawn from a wider research project funded under the ESRC small grant scheme in 2007/2008. This study entitled ‘Secondary School Teachers Experience and Perceptions of Violence in the Workplace’ was conducted during the period of April 2007 until May 2008 in North London and Hertfordshire. The key aims were to examine the nature and extent of violence faced by secondary school teachers from pupils, parents and members of the public, in the course of their work and to identify teachers’ concerns about risks they felt are associated with their job, and the effect this has on their working lives. The study used a mixed-methods approach, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. The data used in this article came from the qualitative stage of the research. In each of the four participating schools, a member of the senior management team was interviewed about individual school policies and practices on violence in their school. In addition, the school managers were asked about their views on the implementation and implications of government policies, such as the power to search a pupil, the legal right to restrain a pupil using reasonable force, and the trialling of metal detectors in some schools. Each school also provided a copy of their own behavioural policies.

Interviews were also conducted with 20 teachers to examine in more depth their personal experiences of violence and post-incident responses such as reporting procedures, support networks and managerial reactions. The third stage consisted of four focus groups with 17 teachers in two schools. The focus groups took a more holistic approach, examining teachers’ views on school policies and practices, in relation to their experiences and perceptions of reporting procedures, formal and informal support networks, training issues and managerial responsibilities.

The schools that took part in the qualitative research were drawn from different areas of North London, Greater London and Hertfordshire. Initially all schools in the area were sent a letter asking them to take part in the research, and nine schools showed an interest in participating. Out of these nine, qualitative research occurred in four. The other schools withdrew for a number of reasons, including trying to arrange a suitable time to conduct the research, or a failure of teachers to come forward to be interviewed. Researching violence is a sensitive issue and it was evident that some schools were reluctant to get involved in the research because of the possibility of being identified and labelled as a ‘problem school’.

To analyse the qualitative data, themes emerged from reading through the transcripts and identifying commonalities in the teachers’ narratives. Other themes emerged from the original research aims, literature and data itself. Themes included professional identities, school practices and response, feelings about own experiences of violence, the effect on their job and teachers’ views of their responsibilities. While in qualitative research these narratives are often re-organized to make them more palatable, here substantial quotes from the teachers allow us to give them a voice.

The Professional Self

Waddington et al. (2006: 150) suggest that workers’ perceptions of violence will vary according to the moral contact between professionals and their clientele. These authors established that Accident and Emergency staff who felt threatened or challenged in the course of their work were most aggrieved because they regarded their role as being to help the patient. A negative reaction from the patient is therefore not expected and taken as a challenge to their professional status as a carer. Police officers were more likely to dismiss minor acts of aggression (e.g. when making an arrest) as their role regularly involved conflict. Like other professions, teachers’ perceptions of their professional identity affected the way in which they discussed their experiences. One of the key themes that emerged was the sense of responsibility and duty of care they felt for pupils and the way in which this framed their responses to incidents of violence.

Conclusions

Our research with teachers indicated that broader definitions allow them to report the experiences that they personally perceived to be violent. While it could be argued that this might inflate the actual numbers of violent incidents that occur, teachers often manage a number of interactions that could be considered as violent but do not report these. Teachers are often sympathetic to young people and seek to understand their behaviour. In addition, some teachers believed that the types of violence they experience, particularly low-level violence were viewed as part of the job. When trying to gauge accurate figures of violence, an appreciation of the environment that a worker operates in is essential. As Jones et al. (2011: 176) argue ‘explanations for workplace assaults are more likely to be found in the nature of workplaces’. Therefore we would suggest that any research into workplace violence must appreciate the differing environments in which violence occurs. We would also suggest that while inclusive definitions allow people to provide detailed accounts of their experience, that ‘violence’ should be categorized into different ‘types’ of violence. For example, in our research we identified ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ violence where teachers who were directly targeted experienced the former and those who were injured when intervening in a situation like a fight, happened to be injured in the cross-fire. Gabe et al. (2001) in their research with GPs, probation officers and Anglican priests also identified two different categories of violence, ‘rational’, where incidents were in some way justified because of the situation the perpetrator was in or issues they had experienced, or ‘irrational’, where violence was seen as unnecessary and as a transgression. Any future research into workplace violence should attempt to make these distinctions so that different categories of behaviour can be identified. We would not agree with Waddington et al. (2005) that only those acts seen as ‘intentional’ should be classified as violent, at times seemingly unintentional acts or acts that occur in the ‘heat of the moment’ can have similar consequences. And in the school environment little of the violence was purposeful or planned.

Both the fear of crime literature and workplace risk literature mentioned previously provide us with a useful basis from which to analyse teachers’ experience of violence. While teachers’ positions made them reluctant to report incidents of violence and to perceive pupils in a negative way, there was still a sense that teachers were fearful in the course of their work at times. This was evident in the way that they discussed feelings of sadness and regret and at times failure to protect other pupils. The way in which teachers also sought to avoid conflict with pupils indicates risk-reducing behaviour. At the same time, as with probation officers, teachers use their professional identities and exteriors to put a brave face on it and to give themselves confidence in dealing with situations that may turn violent. This reveals a resilience that comes with on-the-job experience. What is important is allowing teachers to cope with the encounters that they face. Overall, across the study there were different opinions of whether there had been shifts in the nature of teaching and whether the context of education had changed. However, this does not mean that violence against teachers should be ignored or downplayed. Whatever the extent of violence, if it is impacting upon the profession in a negative way, it is an issue that needs to be taken seriously.