A little blue bird told me: expressions of students' violence against teachers

Abstract

The widespread use of new technologies among youngsters is two-folded: on the one hand, it enables and spreads communication and interaction between people; on the other hand, it reproduces and creates new forms of violence. Supported by a robust theoretical body of studies regarding violence in the school, this article aims to explore the violence committed by young people against their teachers, examining public posts from the social network Twitter. Our data collection was performed by electronic and automated means, while the analysis of messages was performed based on content analysis and principles of social network analysis. Thus, we intend to examine the main content of messages that propagate violence, paving the way for the future deepening of the theory based on empirical data. We do not endeavor to scrutinize the whole subject of school violence on the internet — its causes, and consequences —, but rather to identify its trigger points in order to understand how violence manifests itself in the selected social network and how the tweets’ content shed light on the teacher/student relationship. Underpinned by other studies, our findings indicate that the violent messages on Twitter directed at teachers consist of acts of revanche by the students due to the lack of good relationship in the classroom, and as a result of violence implied in the education act itself.