Nearly one in 10 Australian public school principals say they have experienced inappropriate, abusive behaviour from parents.
This included incidents of stalking, harassment, aggression, physical fights, inappropriate or repeated emailing and social media bullying campaigns.
This abuse by parents is part of a wider wave of violence principals are experiencing in their workplaces.
A national study led by Monash University in collaboration with Deakin University and the University of Sydney, has examined the “emotional labour” of Australian public school principals.
It drew on 298 “critical incident testimonies” from 256 school principals.
The study, released today, found escalating levels of violence in school communities.
“Over half of respondents (64.8 percent) described a critical incident involving physical violence, threats of violence and/or gendered violence, sexual harassment or sexual abuse,” the study report said.
“Words used by principals to describe their experiences included fear, scared, vulnerable, afraid and frightened.”
The study found female principals faced disproportionate levels of harassment and “gendered violence”.
The report is part of a series released under the the Invisible labour: Principals’ emotional labour in volatile times project.
“Government school principals and schools are being held solely responsible for educating the majority of the most disadvantaged students in our society, without adequate funding, services and system support,” the report said.
“This is a major factor in the escalation of violence in schools.”
Lead Monash researcher, Professor Jane Wilkinson, said Australia ranked in the bottom third of the OECD on equity in schools.
“Decades of underfunding of our government schools means that public-school principals are the proverbial canaries in the coalmine,” she said.
“Violence in schools is neither inevitable nor acceptable. But principals and highly disadvantaged communities are being forced to endure the emotional and physical brunt of this underfunding that is a key factor in escalating aggression and violence.”
The full report and recommendations can be found here.
