A qualitative study on mobbing experiences of educators

Mobbing is a kind of psychological coercion in a context of workplace violence. It is a serious and a threatening problem due to its insidious and destructive nature that reduces organizational commitment, performance, and affects team work negatively. It also creates a kind of psychological pressure at work that can lead to pathological problems that threaten the victims' private life and lead to great damage to individuals both spiritually and physically and in their social life. In a conceptual framework, the causes of mobbing which may cause victimization are those which are handled as personal, and organizational, such as hostility, jealousy, the weakness of management and organizational culture and climate. The aim of this thesis is to thoroughly investigate mobbing phenomena at educational organizations in Turkey, analyzing the causes, experiences, and results in order to identify its administrative and occupational signs, and to recommend tangible solutions to the problem for institutions. This study has relevance as it means to investigate, to solve, and to prevent mobbing by contributing to the implementation of educational policies in both practical and institutional continuum. This study has employed a phenomenological research of qualitative approach. Participants were determined by snowball sampling which is kind of purposive sampling method. Data were collected through in-depth interviews. The volunteer teachers and administrators are 13 participants who identified themselves as victims and continued to work at private and public schools in Ankara. Findings indicated that mobbing in public school occurs due to many effects such as personal causes in the organizations, ideological dualism of teachers' union, autocratic and laissez-faire leadership behaviours, conflict, and extreme bureaucratic pressure. It threatens in a similar but underhanded way in private schools as well, without the ideological dualism of teachers' unions. Moreover, a chain effect owing to zero problem syndrome, the expectations of the perfection illusion, and the isolation of the deepest hierarchical barriers may foster mobbing in private schools. The competency of an administrator's personality has specific importance in direct proportion to the organizational causes of mobbing; the existence of mobbing in public and private schools is likely to be an obvious sign of mismanagement in the organizations. Key words: mobbing, teachers' unions, school, school management, teacher, coping strategy