Bullying: perceptions of operational assistants

• Autor(a) principal: Moura, Inês
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Novo, Rosa, Prada, Ana Raquel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34620/eduser.v14i2.213
• topic: Assistentes Operacionais; Bullying; Perceção; Escola; Bullying; Operational Assistants; Perception; School

Adopting a bio-ecological perspective, bullying is considered a relational phenomenon influenced by several systems. Focusing on the school context, there is a growing interest in studying perceptions of bullying from the perspective of teaching professionals, particularly teachers. As operational assistants are responsible for the surveillance of school spaces where bullying events usually occur, these professionals play a key role in the identification of these situations. Recognizing their importance in the school context and considering the scarce existing research with this target audience, this study aims to analyze the knowledge of operational assistants about bullying in the school context. In this context, a mixed, cross-sectional, and exploratory research was adopted, using the questionnaire survey as data collection. This study included a total of 82 operational assistants of both genders, working in primary to secondary schools, located in a city in the north and interior of Portugal. It is worth highlighting from this study that the operational assistants gave a very favorable self-assessment of their knowledge about bullying, even though the vast majority had a generic notion of this concept, not establishing the essential dimensions in its operationalization. Although participants were aware of the impact of bullying, the great majority did not express a clear knowledge of the included dimensions, which may obstruct the identification and action when faced with this type of school violence.