An Exploratory Study on Teachers’ Emotionally Abusive Practices at Secondary School Level

Abstract

Abstract

Emotional abuse practices used by teachers in the classrooms has serious effects on the students’ overall personality and academic achievements. Therefore, this study is aimed to explore the emotionally abusive practices of teachers at secondary school level in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The study used exploratory qualitative research design for analyzing this important issue. Population of the study was secondary school teachers and their 10^th grade students. Purposive sampling technique was used for interview data collection. The data was collected through semi-structured interview protocol related to study objectives. Data was collected from 12 teachers and 18 students through face-to-face meeting with prior consent.  After this the data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The results revealed that secondary school students face teachers’ emotionally abusive behavior (practices) at classroom in the form of-demeaning, controlling, dominating, and destabilizing. Teachers’ data results revealed that teachers are not using emotionally abusive practices intestinally, however, sometimes due to the disruptive behaviors of students, they do follow certain inappropriate behaviors in classroom. The study recommended that teachers’ may be properly trained in domain students’ psychology, and the content related to this issue may be added in the curriculum of pre-service teacher education. Besides this there may be awareness campaigns regarding this problem by government and principals of the schools.

         Keyword: emotionally abusive practices; classroom environment; teacher-student interaction; secondary schools; teachers’ perceptions; students’ perceptions; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa