PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MALTREATMENT IN SCHOOLS - THE ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS OF TEACHERS IN BEDOUIN SCHOOLS IN ISRAEL

Violence against children is multi-faceted and interrelated with famil y, school, community and culture. This study examines violence inflict ed on students by teachers in schools. Few theoretical models of abusi ve behavior by teachers have been developed and examined empirically. This study provides a profile of violence displayed by teachers agains t children, and proposes a model suggesting that teachers' violent beh avior toward students is influenced by school climate and by the ideol ogy of student control. Both relationships are mediated by the teacher s' attitudes concerning the use of verbal and physical violence as edu cational tools. The model was tested on a sample of teachers (n = 117) and their students (n = 1170) from the Bedouin community in Israel. R esults demonstrate high incidence of maltreatment of students by their teachers and support the hypothesized model.