Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 26, Issue 12, December 2002, Pages 1291-1309
Child Abuse & Neglect

Maltreatment of primary school students by educational staff in Israel

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00416-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives: This paper reports on the prevalence of emotional and physical maltreatment of students in primary schools by school staff in Israel. Victimization by staff was analyzed according to students’ gender, age group (4th, 5th, and 6th grade), cultural group (Jewish-non-religious, Jewish-religious, and Arab schools), school characteristics (school size and class size), and by socio-economic status of the students’ families.

Method: Data were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 5472 students in Grades 4–6 in 71 schools across Israel. The students completed questionnaires during class, which included a scale for reporting physical and psychological maltreatment by staff. Data on the socio-economic status of the families of the students in each school were also obtained.

Results: Students reported generally high rates of maltreatment by staff members. Almost a third reported being emotionally maltreated by a staff member, and more than a fifth (22.2%) reported being a victim of at least one type of physical maltreatment. The most vulnerable groups for maltreatment were males, students in Arab schools, and students in schools with a high percentage of students from low-income and low-education families.

Conclusions: These high rates of primary school students’ victimization by staff are unacceptable. We recommend educational campaigns among teachers, as well as allocating more resources to support staff in low socio-economic neighborhoods.

Résumé

Objectif: Cet article documente la prévalence des mauvais traitements physiques et émotionnels que font subir des enseignants aux élèves du niveau primaire, en Israël. On a analysé les mauvais traitements selon le sexe des élèves, leur âge (4ème, 5ème, et 6ème années), leur culte (écoles juives confessionnelles, juives non confessionnelles ou arabes), les caractéristiques des écoles (dimension de l’école et des classes) et le statut socioéconomique des familles.

Méthode: Les données viennent d’un échantillon représentatif comprenant 5472 élèves des 4ème, 5ème, et 6ème années dans 71 écoles à travers Israël. Les élèves ont rempli un questionnaire durant la classe, lequel comprenait une échelle pour déclarer les mauvais traitements physiques et émotionnels perpétrés par les enseignants. Les données socioéconomiques sur les familles ont aussi été documentées dans chacune des écoles.

Résultats: En général, les élèves ont signalé des taux élevés de mauvais traitements. Près d’un tiers ont déclaré avoir subi des mauvais traitements émotionnels et 22.2% se disent victimes d’au moins un type de mauvais traitement physique. Les plus vulnérables sont les garçons, les élèves des écoles arabes et ceux qui fréquentent des écoles où il y a une haute proportion d’élèves de familles défavorisées au point de vue économique et scolaire.

Conclusions: Ces taux élevés de mauvais traitements par les enseignants sont inacceptables. Nous recommandons des campagnes d’information à l’intention des enseignants et des ressources plus considérables pour appuyer les enseignants qui oeuvrent dans des quartiers à nature socioéconomique faible.

Resumen

Objetivos: Este trabajo reporta sobre la prevalencia del maltrato emocional y fı́sico de estudiantes en escuelas primarias por el personal escolar en Israel. La victimización por el personal fue analizada de acuerdo al género, grupo de edad (4to., 5to., y 6to. Grado), grupo cultural (Judı́o, no-religioso y escuelas árabes), caracterı́sticas de la escuela (tamaño de la escuela y tamaño de la clase), y por el nivel socio-económico de las familias de los estudiantes.

Método: Los datos fueron obtenidos de una muestra nacional representativa de 5472 estudiantes en cursos de 4–6 en 71 escuelas en Israel. Los estudiantes completaron cuestionarios durante la clase que incluı́an una escala para reportar maltrato fı́sico y psicológico por el personal. También se obtuvieron datos sobre el nivel socio-económico de las familias de los estudiantes en cada escuela.

Resultados: Los estudiantes generalmente reportaron altas tasas de maltrato por los miembros del personal. Casi un tercio reportó ser maltratado emocionalmente por un miembro del personal, y más de un quinto (22.2%) reportó ser una vı́ctima de por lo menos un tipo de maltrato fı́sico. Los grupos más vulnerables para el maltrato fueron los varones, estudiantes de escuelas árabes, y estudiantes en escuelas con un alto porcentaje de estudiantes de familias con bajos ingresos y poca educación.

Conclusiones: Estas altas tasas de victimización de estudiantes escolares por el personal son inaceptables. Recomendamos campañas educativas entre los maestros, ası́ como asignación de fondos para apoyar al personal en barrios de bajo nivel socioeconómico.

Introduction

School violence is one of the most important social problems facing children and their families, since a growing number of students perceive their school context as an unsafe environment (Astor & Meyer, 2001). While school violence is now receiving widespread attention (e.g., CDC, 2000; Elliott, Hamburg, & Williams, 1998), mainly peer-induced violence has been studied (e.g., Small & Tetrick, 2001). Unfortunately very little attention has been paid to another source of school violence—victimization of students by school staff. Thus, it was only in 1999 that Olweus, a pioneer in the study of peer bullying, reported on data he collected on teachers bullying students in Norway in 1985. He wrote that: “So far as is known, it is the first scientific investigation of this sensitive topic” (Olweus, 1999, p. 42). Since then there have been further studies but most of these have used smaller and non-representative samples (e.g., Kim et al., 2000).

Most recently, Benbenishty, Zeira, and Astor (2002) presented their findings on maltreatment of a representative sample of students in secondary schools in Israel by their educational staff. The study indicated that maltreatment, and especially emotional victimization of students is quite prevalent among junior high and high school students in Israel. The present study follows the Benbenishty et al.’s research and focuses on primary school students in Israel.

This study examines both physical and emotional maltreatment. Emotional maltreatment may be verbal or non-verbal, name calling, mocking of the student’s appearance and (dis)abilities, humiliating the student in front of classmates and blatantly discriminatory behavior against certain students.

Some forms of physical maltreatment may be regarded as intentional and accepted corporal punishment. Hyman (1990) defines corporal punishment in school as the infliction of pain or confinement as a penalty for an offense committed by a student. He found that teachers in the USA employ weapons such as paddles, rubber hoses, leather straps and belts, switches, sticks, rods and more. Benthall (1991) describes similar physical punishment methods practiced in public schools in Britain in the 1950s. In many other instances, physical maltreatment by staff in school is not part of a harsh educational policy advocating corporal punishment. Rather, staff may react to infractions of discipline and provocation by using various degrees of force, such as pushing, shoving, slapping, pinching, punching or kicking. Staff may also adopt punitive policy and practices that disregard and undermine students’ rights (Hyman & Snook, 2000).

Victimization by school staff may have an especially adverse impact on children. Both teaching and non-teaching staff are specially significant as sources of physical and emotional support and protection for them. Especially the younger students turn to school personnel for comfort when they are in need. The adults in school are, or should be, their immediate source of help when they are threatened or bullied. Furthermore, through interaction with the adults in school, students learn important life skills in empathy, respect for others, and conflict-resolution. Victimization by staff may therefore have grave and long-lasting consequences for the victimized students (Hyman, 1990).

Because of this, students subjected to ridicule, physical assault, isolation, verbal discrimination, and sexual harassment by school personnel are more likely to develop problems in school, aggressive behavior, fearful reactions, somatic complaints, dependency and regression, and re-experiencing the trauma inflicted by the educator (Educator Induced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder—EIPTSD, Hyman & Wise, 1979; Hyman, Zelikoff, & Clarke, 1988). Other effects of staff maltreatment are related to the student-teacher relationship. The student may learn to fear the teacher rather than respect him/her and the teacher becomes an aversive individual in the student’s life, someone to escape from or to avoid.

Aggressive and violent behavior by educators and school staff may also result in a strong ‘social learning’ effect (Imbrogno, 2000). Students may see these aggressive types of behavior as legitimate forms of social influence and conflict resolution. Thus, certain practices by the educational staff that were originally intended to curb student violence may actually increase the frequency and severity of violence by these students and their peers (Hyman & Perone, 1998, Hyman & Snook, 2000).

Olweus’ (1999) pioneering study was conducted in 1985 on 2400 students and their teachers in Bergen, Norway. About 2% of the students could be identified as being bullied by a teacher during the reference period of 5 months—a much higher frequency than was expected. Contrasting enormously with these results, a recent study on a nationally representative sample of 10,410 students in Grades 7–11 in 161 schools across Israel found that almost a quarter of the secondary school students reported emotional maltreatment by a staff member, almost a fifth reported being a victim of at least one type of physical form of maltreatment and 8.2% reported at least one sexually inappropriate behavior by a staff member (Benbenishty et al., 2002). These figures cannot be directly compared with Olweus’ findings due to many differences between two studies, most importantly differences in the ways victimization was measured in these two studies. Nevertheless, Benbenishty et al.’s study strongly suggests that the magnitude of the problem in Israel cannot be overlooked.

These alarming findings on staff violence among secondary school children, coupled with the vulnerability of younger students, suggested that staff victimization among primary school children in Israel could be even higher. The current study, on a representative sample of primary schools in Israel, aims firstly to investigate the prevalence of emotional and physical maltreatment of primary students by school staff and, secondly, to identify those groups of students more vulnerable to this victimization. By identifying specific groups that are more victimized, we hope to prioritize the allocation of resources, and to shape policy and treatment based on the assessment of differential needs. The literature in this area provides several hints as to whom we may expect to form these more vulnerable groups. It should be noted, however, that findings from diverse cultures may not generalize to the Israeli context due to many relevant cultural differences, such as views of children’s rights, the relative importance attached to the role of the teacher, differential treatment of the genders, and so forth.

The interpersonal relationships between teachers and staff are more intense and close in primary than in secondary schools, possibly suggesting less victimization by staff in primary schools. However, our informal observations indicated that in Israel the older students are much more vocal and powerful in protecting themselves against authority than are the younger students, and would therefore be less victimized by educational staff.

The empirical evidence is ambiguous. Parkay and Conoley (1982) found that male teachers advocated the use of corporal punishment more than female teachers and Hyman and McDowell (1979) showed that most physical punishment is perpetrated by male staff on male students. This could indicate that the frequency of such physical maltreatment would be lower in primary schools in which most teachers are women. However, Youssef, Attia, and Kamel (1998) showed that younger students are subjected to more maltreatment. Similarly, Benbenishty et al. (2002) found that junior high students report greater victimization by staff than senior high school students. We therefore predicted that primary school students would report more maltreatment than the secondary students in the Benbenishty et al., study. In addition, we predict that younger primary school students will report more maltreatment than the older ones.

The literature clearly indicates that males are involved in many more disciplinary confrontations with staff and that they are punished and disciplined more than females. For instance, during the 1974–1975 school year in Vermont, males in first grade were more than nine times more likely to receive a corporal punishment than the females. In fifth grade, the males were 10 times more likely to be punished than the females (Hyman & McDowell, 1979; see also a review on gender differences in corporal punishment in Gregory, 1995, Youssef et al., 1998). We therefore expected that males in our sample would report victimization by staff more frequently than the females.

Violence against children, especially sanctioned corporal punishment, is influenced by cultural and religious beliefs. Corporal punishment in schools has historical roots and is connected to prevailing myths and beliefs about students, their motives, their rights as human beings, and the effective and acceptable ways of “correcting” unwanted child behaviors (Hyman, 1990; see also Costin, 1978, Groves, 1997, Imbrogno, 2000, Williams, 1979). Dietz (2000), reviewing the literature on the acceptance of corporal punishment of children by their parents in the United States, concludes: “The roots for the use of force as a discipline technique are found throughout our religious and legal institutions as well as ingrained in the socio-cultural foundations of American society” (p. 1530). Religious beliefs may also play a role; Hyman mentions that certain Christian religious groups believe the “devil should be beaten out of students” (Hyman, 1990).

In Israel there are several streams in the formal education system reflecting cultural and ethnic differences in Israeli society. One such cultural difference is that between Jewish and Arab schools. Arab families almost never send their students to Jewish schools and vice versa. In addition, the Jewish stream is divided into religious and non-religious schools. Most of the religious Jewish parents send their students to religious schools, while secular Jewish parents rarely send their students to religious schools. This de facto segregation in the educational system allows each cultural group to maintain its cultural identity. The literature strongly suggests that the differences in cultural and religious beliefs may be reflected in different rates of victimization by staff. We shall now review this literature and present our hypotheses derived from it.

Cultures that are more accepting toward corporal punishment by parents tend to permit more corporal punishment in school, where teachers play the role of “in loco parentis.” Moreover, children subjected to corporal violence at home are more likely to be victims of corporal punishment by teachers (Kim et al., 2000, Youssef et al., 1998). To illustrate this point, Ellinger and Beckham (1997) report that South Korean parents consent to their children being physically punished in school if the teacher thinks that it will improve the child’s performance. The Korean Protection Agency has reported that 97% of the Korean students it surveyed have experienced corporal punishment (see also Doe, 2000). Kim and his associates (Kim et al., 2000), comparing the rates of teachers’ violence against students in South Korea and China, found that 4.1% of Chinese students reported serious violence perpetrated against them by their teachers, while the rate among South Korean students was 43.8%. The authors attribute these differences to a very different cultural stance with regard to the acceptability of corporal punishment in school.

In the West, many religious groups interpret some proverbs in the Old and New Testament as supporting corporal punishment (e.g., Proverbs 13:24: “He that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him”). Osborne (1996) reports that among religious leaders, those that have a “literalist” interpretation of the Bible tend to support physical punishment more than others. Herold (2001) examined the attitudes of parents from several Jewish groups in the US and concludes that Jewish parents support physical punishment less than other segments of the population. He also reports that the more Orthodox Jews accept physical punishment more than other Jewish religious groups. In the public debate on the legality of corporal punishment in Israel, parties representing Jewish orthodox religious groups promote and support the introduction of a law permitting some “non-abusive” forms of parental corporal punishment. In addition, students in religious secondary schools report higher incidences of victimization by staff than students in non-religious schools (Benbenishty et al., 2002). We therefore predict that in primary schools students in Jewish religious schools will report more maltreatment than students in Jewish non-religious schools.

Findings from Arab cultures also suggest that corporal punishment may be acceptable in school. In Alexandria, Egypt, Youssef et al. (1998) found a high prevalence of corporal punishment; 80% of the males and 62% of the females reported corporal punishment by teachers in middle and high school during a period of 1 year. The authors report that this type of behavior is highly acceptable in Egypt.

Much of the Arab sector in the Israeli society is characterized by traditional patriarchal and authoritarian family values (Haj-Yahia, 1997). The use of physical power to express control is an acceptable norm, especially when coming from men and directed toward pupils, women and children. Elbedour, Center, Maruyama, and Assor (1997) found that children in Arab Bedouin schools in Israel are seen as property of the parents, and physical and psychological punishment by teachers is an accepted cultural norm.

There are certain Jewish groups that are more patriarchal and have more traditional family values than other groups. Still, the general orientation among Jews in Israel is Western-liberal. One expression of this orientation are the clear rules and guidelines of the Ministry of Education that specifically ban corporal punishment and urge educators to respect students’ feelings and rights. Benbenishty et al. (2002) found that in secondary schools, Arab students consistently report more staff maltreatment than Jewish students. We therefore hypothesize that students in Arab in primary schools in Israel will report higher rates of maltreatment by school staff than students in Jewish primary schools.

Students from minority and poor families are victimized by staff more than those from a higher socioeconomic background (Hyman, 1990, Hyman & Wise, 1979, Jackson, 1999, Youssef et al., 1998). In the United States, Hyman (1990) has shown that regions with high illiteracy and poverty rates and low per student expenditures on education have the highest rates of corporal punishment. African-Americans are particularly over-represented; they make up more than 74% of students receiving corporal punishment (Meier, Stewart, & England, 1989). Analyzing the database on corporal punishment compiled by the Office of Civil Rights in the US, Gregory (1995) found that Black students were 3.26 times more likely to receive corporal punishment in school than White students. Gregory further speculated that there are even stronger biases against Black students (see also Shaw & Braden, 1990).

In this study we examine the relationship between reports of staff maltreatment and the socio-economic status of the students’ families. Based on the literature, we hypothesize that students in schools characterized by lower socio-economic status will report more maltreatment. It should be emphasized that our study examines socio-economic status of the student body as a whole. In this study we do not explore whether within the same school students coming from families that are economically disadvantaged are treated differently. It is also important to note, that the Arab minority in Israel is characterized by high rates of poverty and unemployment and much lower expenditure of public funds for social services (such as education) than is the Jewish majority (Hareven, 1998, Kop, 1999). Hence, our comparison of Arab and Jewish students in Israeli schools may confound cultural-ethnic differences, minority status and socio-economic situation.

The literature on school size seems to indicate that larger schools and class sizes create an atmosphere of alienation and distance between staff and students. Hence, one would expect that larger schools and class sizes are associated with higher levels of victimization by staff. However, we found no direct reference in the literature to this connection between school size and staff victimization. We explore this relationship in this study.

In summary, in the study presented here, the frequency of emotional and physical maltreatment perpetrated by educational staff was examined in a nationally representative sample of primary school students in Israel. The prevalence of victimization was compared among males and females and between 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. The three main educational streams in Israel: Arab, Jewish religious, Jewish non-religious, were also compared as were schools characterized by different socio-economic status of the students’ families and by different class and school size.

Section snippets

Method

The findings reported in this study are part of a large national survey of school violence in Israel conducted among 4th–11th grade students throughout Israel during fall 1998 (Benbenishty, Zeira, & Astor, 2000). The survey asked students to report their victimization to many types of peer and staff violence and maltreatment. They were also asked a series of questions about their subjective assessments of their safety and school climate. Students were given a structured questionnaire in

Results

We first studied the frequency of each of the behaviors included in staff maltreatment, as reported by the students. Table 1 presents the reports of students on each of the items describing the various forms of victimization by staff, for the sample as a whole, and for each of the groups.

Table 1 indicates that 22.0% of students reported being mocked, insulted or humiliated by an educational staff member and almost fifth (18.5%) of the students reported being cursed by a staff member. That is,

Discussion

The study presented here is the first investigation of a nationally representative sample of primary school students with regard to their maltreatment by educational staff. We compared reports by gender, age group (4th, 5th, and 6th grade), cultural group (Jewish-non-religious, Jewish-religious, and Arab schools), socio-economic status of the students’ families, and school and class size. Overall we found a rather high prevalence of reports on victimization by staff, especially emotional

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the many students, principals, teachers, supervisors, and administrators who generously gave their time and support to make this study possible.

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