Professores sabem o que é bullying? Um tema para a formação docente

Abstract

This qualitative research focused on how teacher education approaches bullying and aimed to identify what teachers think about this phenomena, how they interfere when it happens in elementary public schools and what do they expect to study about this theme during teacher training. Six trainees and six public school teachers were interviewed in Recife, Brazil. As results, we identified that the research participants found it difficult to characterize how bullying is present in schools. They consider that this is a relevant issue, even thou they recognize that their teacher education did not address this problem. When questioned about how to interfere, they proposed that dialogue is the best resource and that parents and other authorities must be involved. The study leads to conclude that bullying is recognized as a problem that concerns schools and teachers, but it has not been studied regularly in formal education or in teacher training.