Anatolian high school teachers' perceptions of mobbing: Comparison study between private and public schools

Mobbing is a kind of pressure applied continiously by one or more than one person in order to torture and to inhibit someone's personality and self image. The main aim of this pressure is to decrease performance of the aggrieved person. Mobbing has been frequently observed in state educational institutions as well as other institutions. Therefore many articles and theses have been written on the concept of mobbing in education sector in recent years. The objective of this study, organized in a qualitative design, is to reveal whether there is a difference in the teachers' perceptions of mobbing. Teachers have been asked several questions as their mobbing definitions, the cause of being exposed to mobbing, mobbing periods, and how they deal with mobbing. According to the answers received from the teachers, it is studied whether there is a difference between the teachers working at the public schools and the teachers employed at the private schools. 24 teachers from different branches have contributed the study conducted in four schools. The results of the analyses was determined that the teachers working in the private schools more commonly encounter with mobbing and feel the effects of the mobbing more than public teachers. The pressure felt by private school teachers' derived from competition and job assurance. The study has determined that public shool teachers also experience mobbing in various ways, but public teachers without future concerns can cope easily with it. Private and state schools have shown major differences in terms of the diversity of mobbing.