Exploring School Violence Misconceptions and Professional Development of Teachers

The escalation of school violence in many countries and South Africa in particular calls for concern. The purpose of this paper is to explore school violence misconceptions and professional development of teachers. This case study used a South African high school where a principal, teachers and learners were the participants. Two data generation tools were used; namely interviews and documents analysis. The findings suggest that misconceptions of school violence emanated from beliefs and values held by teachers and learners that overshadowed the harmful effects of some behaviour or acts of sexual harassment, homophobia and corporal punishment. The findings show a lack of training of teachers about school violence, which in turn implied that, they promoted violence while they believed that they were trying to curb it. We consequently argue that teachers' professional development could be an answer for effectively tackling school violence.