M.Ed. / The staffroom which was once a retreat for a cup of tea, coffee, a breather and a catch-up of educational talk has become an empty room of silent voices that echo; a place characterised by unresolved grievances, unmanageable workloads, ignored opinions, feelings of being excluded, vital information that was withheld, excessive monitoring, repeated reminders of errors, hostile reaction on approach, persistent criticism, humiliation or ridiculing and impossible deadlines for completion of tasks. The voices of educators have become silent and complacent; actions are defined by what is expected and prescribed by the government. Bullying in the workplace has largely been regarded as insignificant. This complex and universal phenomenon, however, is firmly rooted in South African schools. Changes in an organisation as well as political influences have severe consequences on educators, as educators are more exposed to diversity, cultural differences, increased workloads, harassment, and humiliation, unmanageable workloads in order to meet targets, intimidation, hostility and degradation. Exposure to bullying in the staffroom and personal experiences as being a victim of bullying motivated this researcher to improve her qualifications and to conduct research in downward bullying. The research, based upon educator perceptions, attempts to investigate whether downward bullying is taking place, when it is taking place, as well as how often it is perceived to occur within primary schools in Gauteng. To facilitate this investigation, the following objectives were set; to investigate the nature of downward bullying, to probe the perceptions of educators as to the frequency of downward bullying and to devise strategies to enable educators to recognise and cope with downward bullying. Completing this research, a set of management strategies for the identification and reduction of downward bullying were suggested. Indistinguishable from compliance, control, governmentality and managerialism, downward bullying, if not addressed, is a concern for the education system in South Africa. The dynamics presented within this research will shed light on the "dark side" of legitimate power, exposing the gravitational nature of bullying as an escalating workplace phenomenon.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:42:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MORAES_Telma_2015.pdf: 1888477 bytes, checksum: 66044c69918b31a84d1c9b2d4528e83d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-26 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / The present work casts doubts on the perceptions of parents, students, regular teachers, coordinator teachers and principals from the state schools at the city of Itapetininga as much as the complete sense and meaning of democratic management in the dimension of predictability, effectiveness and implications that they result, through punctual fragments articulated in the literature area. the study was anchored in the premises of search qualitative and quantitative from interviews with the directors of the school and semi- structured questions were led to the participants and for its analysis we searched for four specific categories in which we could see clearly the results from the people who were the subject of study: 1) The signification of democracy, with theorical basis essentially from Bobbio (1998, 2000, 2013); 2) The signification of the representative organs (APM and Conselho de Escola and Grêmio estudantil) with basis on Gohn (2011), Hora (2012), Lima (2013) Riscal (2009) Luiz, Riscal and Ribeiro (2013), Oliveira and Silva (2005), Paro (2007) Ramos and Conti (2013); 3) The administration of democratic schooll studied from Hora (2012), Lima (2013), Lima, Aranda and Lima (2013), (Meirieu (2005), Oliveira (2013), Paro (1998, 1999, 2007, 2008 e 2010); 4) The resignification of the school quality, with theorical reference in Benevides (1996), Enguita (2001), Frigotto (2001), Gentili (2001), Lima (2014), Paro (1998, 1999, 2000, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014) and Prado (2014). The contextualization of the do object of research also aroused the investigation of the course and patterns of the school administration in which took place on the republican time, such as the analysis of relation between schoool administration and enterprise administration. These investigations were developed on the theorical basis from Gallindo and Andreotti (2012), Ganzelli (2005), Clark, Nascimento and Silva (2012), Félix (1985), Lourenço Filho (1976), Minto (2012), Penteado and Bezerra (2012), Pereira (2006), Ribeiro (1995), Romanelli (2014), Sander (2005, 2007), Xavier (1992). Our main conclusions are the evidence that the conception of direct democracy imposed itself dominant among the people involved as been the ideal; there is a distance between the concept of democracy stood up by Bobbio (2000) and what the people involved in the study understand; it is not clear yet as for the main elements of representative democracy; there is the understanding about the attributions, the nature and the reasons of the school organs, however, in the representation, it ignores the question on the role of social control of education; there is a conformist trende in a non participation of parents at the make-decision rooms; everybody recognizes that the democratic administration contributes to the quality of education, although, it is necessary to think about which are the indicators of quality in the democratic education and, finally the conclusion is that between the predictability and the effectiveness of democratic administration, there is still a long way to be run. / O presente trabalho problematiza as percepções de pais, alunos, docentes, professores coordenadores e diretores de escolas estaduais do município de Itapetininga quanto ao sentido e significação plenos da gestão democrática na dimensão previsibilidade, efetividade e implicações decorrentes, à luz de recortes pontuais articulados à literatura da área. O estudo foi ancorado nas premissas da pesquisa qualitativa-quantitativa, por meio de entrevistas com diretores de escola e questionários estruturados e semi-estruturados aos demais participantes e, para sua análise, buscamos quatro categorias especificas nas quais pudemos evidenciar as devolutivas dos sujeitos ao objeto de estudo: 1) Significação de democracia, com embasamento teórico advindos essencialmente de Bobbio (1998, 2000, 2013); 2) Significação dos órgãos representativos (APM e Conselho de Escola e Grêmio estudantil) com base em Gohn (2011), Hora (2012), Lima (2013) Riscal (2009) Luiz, Riscal e Ribeiro (2013), Oliveira e Silva (2005), Paro (2007) Ramos e Conti (2013); 3) Gestão escolar democrática a partir de Hora (2012), Lima (2013), Lima, Aranda e Lima (2013), (Meirieu (2005), Oliveira (2013), Paro (1998, 1999, 2007, 2008, 2010 e 2012); 4) Ressignificação de qualidade de ensino, com referência teórica em Benevides (1996), Enguita (2001), Frigotto (2001), Gentili (2001), Lima (2014), Paro (1998, 1999, 2000, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014) e Prado (2014). A contextualização do objeto de pesquisa suscitou, ainda, a investigação da trajetória e modelos da administração escolar assumidos no período republicano, bem como a análise da relação entre Administração Escolar e a Administração de Empresa. Essas investigações foram desenvolvidas a partir do embasamento teórico de Gallindo e Andreotti (2012), Ganzelli (2005), Clark, Nascimento e Silva (2012), Félix (1985), Lourenço Filho (1976), Minto (2012), Penteado e Bezerra (2012), Pereira (2006), Ribeiro (1995), Romanelli (2014), Sander (2005, 2007), Xavier (1992). Nossas principais conclusões são a comprovação de que a concepção de democracia direta se impôs dominante entre os envolvidos como sendo a ideal; há uma distância entre o conceito de democracia propugnado por Bobbio (2000) e o que entendem os respondentes; não há clareza quanto aos elementos primordiais da democracia representativa; há o entendimento sobre as atribuições, a natureza e as finalidades dos órgãos colegiados, no entanto, na representação ignora-se a questão do papel de controle social da educação; há uma tendência conformista na não participação dos espaços decisórios por parte dos pais; todos reconhecem que a gestão democrática contribui para a qualidade do ensino, porém, se faz necessário pensar quais são os indicadores de qualidade da educação democrática e, por fim, a conclusão de que entre a previsibilidade e a efetividade da gestão democrática há um longo caminho a ser percorrido.