Violence Against Teachers – An Overlooked Crisis?
By Tim Walker
According to a recent article published by the American Psychological Association (APA), 80 percent of the teachers surveyed reported being victimized at school at least once in the current school year or prior year. Teacher victimization is a “national crisis,” says Dorothy Espelage, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who served as chair of the APA task force on Classroom Violence Directed at Teachers. And yet, the issue is generally ignored or at least underreported by the media and given inadequate attention by scholars – a deficiency that has widespread implications for school safety, the teaching profession and student learning.
The APA article was based on a survey – one of the few national studies – conducted in 2011 that solicited anonymous responses from almost 3,000 K-12 teachers in 48 states (NEA helped APA with distribution of the
According to a recent article published by the American Psychological Association (APA), 80 percent of the teachers surveyed reported being victimized at school at least once in the current school year or prior year. Teacher victimization is a “national crisis,” says Dorothy Espelage, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who served as chair of the APA task force on Classroom Violence Directed at Teachers. And yet, the issue is generally ignored or at least underreported by the media and given inadequate attention by scholars – a deficiency that has widespread implications for school safety, the teaching profession and student learning.The APA article was based on a survey – one of the few national studies – conducted in 2011 that solicited anonymous responses from almost 3,000 K-12 teachers in 48 states (NEA helped APA with distribution of the