Teachers Perspectives on Headteachers Mistreatment: Exploring the other Side of the Coin

Abstract

Treating teachers appropriately is considered extremely important for promoting a healthy and effective school environment. The present research predominantly focused on headteachers professional behaviour towards teachers in an attempt to explore teachers unheard voices. A phenomenological approach was employed to uncover teachers experiences of how they are treated by the headteachers in schools. Fifteen teachers were purposively selected from public and private schools of an administrative division in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The underlying themes were explored through a thematic analysis of the text. The emergent themes include teacher-head teacher interaction, authoritative in the meetings, favouritism and biases, ignoring staff members, hurting self-respect and frustration and isolation. The study has implications for school improvement and further research on headteachers experiences that lead them to a certain type of behaviour towards teachers.