As an educator at the school and as a member of the community in which the school is located, I am aware of several cases of violence within the school and the surrounding area. I conducted my research among a class of forty-five male and female year 9 students at the coeducational secondary school where I teach. The rest of the students live in the community in which the school is located.
First, many of the students of color in this community where the school is located, who are from either middle-class or upper-class families, are enrolled in either private or semi-private schools located in neighboring suburbs. Differences between class and race for students and educators is an important point to note. In the first part, I have given extracts from some of the male and female students' essays.
In the second part, I included extracts from my notes from the group discussion I conducted with the learners and attempted to identify the effects of this violence on the schooling of male and female learners.
Literature Review
Therefore, using a school as a research location seemed the right choice, because my research focuses on the experiences and perceptions of – as well as the effects on – male and female students of the violence that takes place within their school. A second factor that influenced the choice of the school where I teach as a research site for data collection was the ease of access to my research sample. This behavior has earned both male and female students in this class a reputation among teachers and their peers as the worst of the bunch (of students within the entire school).
The majority of the black male and female students live in the towns of Chesterville, Umlazi and KwaMashu. With this in mind, my choice of children's writings (i.e. essays) as a means of data collection was heavily influenced by my expectation that the essays would allow students to freely reflect on their own perceptions of the violence they have experienced in the school. This was necessary for the analysis of the research data; - to not only identify the forms of violence that occur in school, but also the forms of violence that are located in the different gender relations.
This was also necessary in my analysis of the survey data to determine how male and female students (within these two different gender categories) perceive their experiences. On the contrary, in my capacity as a researcher, I found all the reports (even the shoddy ones) informative. The reason for using a group discussion as a means of data collection was to determine what effects the acts of violence that occurred within the school have had on the education of male compared to that of female students.
Firstly, I felt that - as an educator of the school - it might have been difficult for me to take an objective approach. As a result, valuable input from some of the male and female learners could have been lost. Because of the reputation of this class of learners (for their unruly classroom behavior and their tendency to get loud during class discussions of a similar nature), I chose to conduct the group discussion in an informal setting in which the learners would not feel restricted. express themselves.
This affected my data collection in the sense that I was forced to record the large group discussion (i.e. the oral reports of the representatives of each group) in writing. This is why the scribes' notes of the various (smaller) groups became useful (in case I missed an important point in my personal notes of the large group discussion/feedback during the large group discussion). In determining the effects of school violence on male and female students' schooling, I compared the discussion notes of each of the (smaller) groups that I collected from the scribes within the different groups with my own. notes.
This was to ensure that any important point could not be overlooked in my transcription of the large group discussion.
Analysis of Data and Findings
The male and female students who described their experiences with bullying and being bullied by groups of students stated in their essays that the bullying takes place primarily with the aim of robbing the victim for money. Although bullying reports are similar to bullying reports, they differ from bullying in that the reports identified bullies/groups of bullies targeting the same students, while reports of groups of male students bullying other male students it was found that these groups chose their victims at random. Reports indicate that the group of male students who bullied other male students were not physically well built.
It was also noted that the smaller built male learners were targets of these groups of bullies. The other two 'bullies' were not named but it was indicated that they were male learners from grade ten onwards. However, what was significant from these stories was that the same three individual bullies {Ivan, Norman and Tyrone) - accused of bullying learners individually in separate incidents - joined forces with two other tenth grade male learners identified as bullies is.
My experience was that there was a whole gang at school that likes to bully young boys every day who are in eighth and ninth grade and are short. This gang of bullies is 'Ivan'. However, some have stated that some students use guns to intimidate other students and rob them of money. Gangs of male students tying the hands and feet (of individual male students in their care) with ropes and dragging them across school grounds appear to be a particularly common practice.
They join forces and - as a gang - physically smaller male students target individual bullies and (in a similar way they are victimized) they tie the hands and feet of the male students they often victimize and drag them around school premises. The accounts also show two derivations of a macho (violent) mode of masculinity competing for dominance within this arena – one consisting of physically larger male students (eg Ivan, Norman and Tyrone) and the other of older students men ('smokers'). . In the following narratives, male and female students have described their experiences of violence between women.
She does not attack her victims, nor does she attack the same male students repeatedly and therefore cannot be described as 'a female bully'. From this I have deduced that: on the one hand, while it is recognized by female students that it is unfeminine to physically attack male students, on the other hand it is described as 'unbelievable' for any male learner to retaliate with physical violence against a female learner.
Group Discussion
The above answer shows that fear is a clear effect of violence on male students in particular. It is clear from the above responses that male and female students routinely witness incidents of violence and intimidation against the female teachers and see this as a sign of disrespect towards the teachers by the male students who do so. It was noted that violence – verbal and physical – is used by male and female students.
Research data suggests that although the use of violence is widespread among both male and female school students, it is used in different forms and perceived differently. Female students perceive verbal violence (eg swearing, etc.) as well as physical violence as a female prerogative. It was also observed that the use of physical violence against female students is not perceived by male students as a means of affirming their masculinity.
However, it was stated that the use of physical violence between students is justified when a male student is attacked by a female student, as in this case the violence is perceived as a means of self-defense. It was also shown that female students perceive male student violence against female students as unacceptable (ungentlemanly). Both male and female students perceive violence as a means to an end, although the goals are different for men than for women.
Violence is normalized by male and female students even though it is widely understood to have a negative impact on their learning. However, fear of violence appears to have a more direct effect on male students (especially physically smaller male students) in that they are targets of physical violence from other males. Violence affects the academic progress of both male and female students, but this effect appears to gain concern for female students rather than male students.
Female students blame the frequency of punching and rudeness towards teachers for their poor academic progress. My study shows that violence among students has become normalized - especially physical violence among male students and verbal violence among female students. Despite the awareness of the negative impact of this violence on their schooling and the fact that students have expressed that they are under pressure to use violence, the benefits of violence - quite disturbing physical violence - are recognized by men and women, students and educators. .
Therefore, the merits of (physical) violence as perceived by male students allow the cycle of violence to continue in male student/male student and/male educator gender relations.
Recommendations
Bibliography
Appendices
The attached answer sheet is provided for this purpose, in your essay, you should describe your experience of violence within your school. It is important to state whether you are male or female and to state your age. Your essays should not be fictional, in other words, it is important that you describe events that you have really experienced.
