Towards a model of combating peer harassment among rural day secondary schools in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The article focuses on the views of what teachers can do to deal with peer harassment which is rampant among learners in Zimbabwean rural day schools so that the wellbeing of learners is enhanced. The study comprised of fifteen learners who were asked to suggest what teachers could do to assist learners when they fell victim to peer harassment. A phenomenological design in which semi- structured interviews were used to elicit the responses from the learners was used to generate the data. Participants for the study were purposively. The criteria for selection was that the participants were aged between thirteen to fifteen years and that they had experienced harassment either as observers or victims. A major finding was that most teachers were not doing much to assist the learners. Failure to do so often led to a number of psychological problems which influenced the wellbeing of learners at school. Most teachers appeared to lack the necessary skills with which they could assist learners who reported that they were being harassed. The study concluded that the simple model could be inculcated in the teacher training curricula to assist rural school teachers to combat peer harassment in their classrooms.