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Lizo Journal Paper 26TH December, 2020
Lizo Journal Paper 26TH December, 2020
Abstract
This paper investigated the assault that teachers of secondary schools in South West Nigeria
experienced from the parents. The paper also examined the reasons of parents’ victimization of
teachers thus; it highlighted the reasons in terms of actions and activities of parents towards the
victimization that teachers experienced especially in South West Nigeria Secondary schools.
Furthermore, it makes suggestions and recommendations towards the means by which Ministry
of Education and other regulatory bodies in charge of education should educate the parents to
desist from various acts of victimizations on teachers especially such as: name-calling, verbal
threat, ridiculing in front of other adults and publicly challenging teachers. This paper equally
suggested ways for further studies, for instance, further studies can be conducted to appraise the
same topic in each State of South West Nigeria. This is because the knowledge and
understanding of victimization will facilitate the outcome being undertaken in Nigerian Schools.
Introduction
Violence is a regular occurrence and very predominant wherever formal schooling environment
exists as Egbochukwu, (2007) puts it. Without any discrimination, violence is a global
phenomenon according to Dosunmu (2015). School-based violence such as parents to teachers’
physical victimization can come in form of “bullying” as well as “cyber-victimization of
teachers”. All these remain a serious concern for schools and communities across the world.
School-based violence could be described to be physical attacks by parents on school staff
especially teachers. These can occur on the teachers’ ways/coming back from school or in the
school premises, particularly when trying to solve one issue or another. The consequences of
school-based violence are grievous as extreme cases had led to the loss of human lives, other
effects of schools’ violence includes: vandalism and loss of property. Most scholars agreed that
school-based violence is a multi-systemic problem that manifest from communities’ schools.
This may be serious problems to education as, Omokhodion, Nkwokeocha & Pemede (2015) put
it.
Parents’ victimization on the teachers has become a social issue which warrants the scrutiny of
educators and others. Dissatisfied parents may react at school, from what they perceive as
wrong doings on the path of the teachers aimed towards their children. Parental frequent
bullying behaviour towards teachers may aggravate the extent and the severity of victimized
teachers’ loss of interests in a school programme consequently resulting into a woeful
performance of students.
Bronfenbrenner (1977), viewed how serious the concern is for threat, parents’ violence towards
teachers, the lack of teachers support and its effect on teacher. Various factors deduced as
reasons why teachers leave teaching profession includes: parental violence towards them,
substance-abuse, and threat to their safety as put by (Long & Freese, 2006). Parents-
victimization on teachers may be linked to teachers’ retention or the lack thereof in schools.
Parental bullying disrupts a scheduled day’s work and traumatizes the teachers. Work-place
bullying incident reveals that teachers may be subjected to violent behaviour directed towards
them by parents. Dealing with difficult and aggressive parents is a growing problem for teachers
(Chen & Astor, 2009).
The population of this study comprised all parents of secondary school students in South-West-
Nigeria. The study sample consisted of 180 parents drawn from three states out of the six states
in the South-West geo-political zone of Nigeria. The states are : Lagos, Ogun and Ondo.
The sample-Random Sampling Technique was applied in the selection of the three sampled
states. 36 parents were selected from each of the three states for the parents’ respondent
group. Parents of students with track records of violence on teachers were purposively selected
for the study.
Behavioural Acts and Frequency of Victimization of Teachers by Parents Inventory (BAFI) and
Behavioural Acts of Victimization of Teachers by Parents Questionnaire (BAVPQ) were used as
instruments for data collection. The two instruments were validated by experts in the area of
Sociology and Educational Tests and Measurement to ascertain its appropriateness in
generating the relevant data for the study.
The researcher made the instruments available to the sample population and personally
administered them. The researcher read out the instructions to all the parents who had
difficulty in understanding the basic requirements and requested them not to write their names
so as to assure them of the desire for hundred percent confidentiality.
The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics was used
in answering the research questions while postulated hypotheses were tested using ANOVA at
0.05 level of significance.
Research Questions
The following research questions were asked:
Hypothesis
The following hypothesis was formulated for the study.
Ho1: There is no significant relationship in the responses of parents and the acts of
The causes of victimizations of teachers by parents ranged from discipline their children using
rejection means to teachers’ attitude to work as indicated in table 1. The weighted average of
the means is 1.7. The first reason of teachers’ victimization by parents was that teachers used
rejection to discipline their children with a mean of 1.84. Others include teachers setting up
other students to bully parents’ children (1.83), teachers hurting the feelings of their children
(1.81), too many free periods on the time-table (1.8), teachers’ unfair treatment of their
children (1.79) and strikes action by teachers (1.78).
Other reasons stated had means ranging from 1.75 to 1.63 which are below the weighted
average of 1.76. Excluding parents’ children from partaking in some school activities ranked 7 th
with a mean of 1.75, poor supervision of parents’ children ranked 8 th with mean of 1.71,
frequent absence of teachers from school and repeatedly punishes parents’ children ranked 9 th
with a mean of 1.7, while teachers attitude to work was the least ranked cause of school-based
violence experienced by teachers.
Name-calling 32 50 16 25 16 25 1.95
Table 2: shows the various acts of victimization experienced by teachers from parents and this ranged
from “name-calling to vandalisation” of teachers’ properties. The weighted average of the acts of
victimization by mean ranking is 1.73. From the table, verbal abuse, name calling, verbal threat,
ridiculing in front of other adults and publicly challenging teachers had means above the weighted
average, implying that they are the most preponderance acts of victimization experienced by teachers
from parents. From the mean ranking on table 2, the most frequently acts of victimization experienced
by teachers from parents is verbal abuse with a mean of 2.02. This is followed by name calling, verbal
threat, ridiculing teachers in front of adults and publicly challenged with respective means of 1.95,
1.93, 1.84 and 1.73. However, ridiculing teachers in front of students, purposely opposing a teacher in
order to cause psychological harm, physical intimidation, physical assault, and ridiculing teachers in
front family members had means of 1.72, 1.72, 1.63, 1.62and 1.59 respectively which are below the
weighted average of 1.73.
Research Question 3:
Does school type (rural/urban) (private/public) determine the preponderance of victimization of
teachers by parents?
Total 37 13 8 58
Total 37 13 8 58
Most of the acts of victimization reported by teachers were from urban schools as indicated in
Table 3. Among the 36 teachers from urban schools and the 22 from the rural schools, 26
(70.3%) teachers from the urban and 11 (29.7%) teachers from the rural schools respectively
experienced acts of victimization 2-3 times per session. Five and eight teachers experienced
acts of victimization four times in an academic session, while five three teachers respectively
experienced acts of victimization 5-6 times. This implies that teachers from the urban schools
experience acts of victimization more than those in the rural areas.
Furthermore, Table 3, shows that 20 (54.1%) teachers in the private schools and 17 (45.9%) of
teachers in the public schools reported that they experienced acts of victimization 2-3 times.
Seven and six teachers from both public and private schools respectively reported that they
experienced acts of victimization 4 times in a session. The implication is that teachers from
private secondary schools experienced acts of victimization more than their counterparts from
public schools.
Testing of Hypothesis
Ho1: There is no significant relationship in the responses of parents and acts of victimization that
teachers experience.
Table 4: Pearson Product Moment Correlation on the responses of the parents and victimization that
teachers experience.
.023 .802
Table 3: Shows that there is no significant correlation between the responses of parents and acts of
teachers’ victimization (r=.023, p=.802, 2-tailed). This implies that the relationship between the
responses of parents and acts of teachers’ victimization was not statistically related, although it is an
extremely very weak correlation since 0.05% of the variation is explained.
Summary of findings
Various acts of victimization experienced by teachers from parents ranged from name calling to
vandalization of teachers property. Specifically such acts includes: verbal abuse, verbal threat,
ridiculing in front of others adults and physically challenging teachers.
Teachers experienced school-based violence 2-3 times in an academic session from parents.
Teachers submitted that parents visited their premises at will whenever there is crisis to embarrass
or intimidate especially the female teachers. Almost all the teachers agreed that they have been
challenged face-to-face many times by parents.
The causes of victimization of teachers by parents ranged from discipline their children using
rejection means to teachers’ attitude to work.
The relationship between responses of parents and acts of teachers’ victimization was not
statistically related, although it is an extremely weak correlation.
Discussion of findings
What triggers/initiates parents victimization of teachers?
The study found out that teachers used rejection to discipline their students with weighted average
of 1.33, disliked a lot of students (1.3) and frequently suspended students (1.5) among others. The
finding of this study agrees with an earlier study by Eyinaya (2015), who reported that violence is a
social ill and may occur for diverse reasons.
Furthermore, frequently suspending/ punishing same student aggravate violence in schools. Results
of findings on Table 1 showed glaringly what triggers/initiates parents school based violence. The
study showed that there is no correlation between responses of parents and acts of teachers,
meaning that the relationship between the responses of parents and acts of victimization was not
statistically related.
Conclusion
Teachers’ unfair treatment to students and frequent suspension of some students were
highlighted as causes of school-based violence as expressed by parents in South West Nigeria.
The responses of parents and acts of teachers’ victimization received a non-statistical
relationship and an extremely very weak correlation.
Recommendations
Ministry of Education and other regulatory bodies in-charge of education should educate the
parents to desist from various acts of victimization of teachers, especially such that arise from
verbal abuse, name-calling, verbal threat, ridiculing in front of other adults and publicly
challenging teachers. Concerned authorities should attach some security personnel to schools
in a bid to discourage the frequent embarrassment and victimization of teachers by parents.
Educators should push for the enactment of specific laws that will help curb school violence
against teachers by parents and make it an offence punishable by the law.
REFERENCES
Dosunmu, S.A. (2015) Political Economy of Terrorology in Nigeria: Bridging the Gaps Emanating
from Terrorism with Peace Education. Fudma Journal of Science and Educational
Long, J. S., & Freese, J. (2006). Regression models for categorical dependent variables using sata
Manzoor, A. S. (2017). Violation of human rights in schools and its impacts on school going
2(4),49-41.