August Article of the Month

Our August article of the month explores incidents of bullying, threats of violence, and physical violence to identify disparities in the experiences of men and women school leaders. The article is part of an outstanding forthcoming two part Themed Collection in ELRR – Gender and Work Emerging Issue. Using longitudinal data from over 19,000 school leaders collected over 2011 to 2020, the authors provide a robust case that workplace violence against leaders in the Australian school system is gendered. Women are both more likely to experience threats of violence, harassment, and bullying and bear a disproportionate risk of emotional and psychological harm. Some of the findings that fall from the study are intriguing, for example that perpetrators of bullying are much more likely to be colleagues or subordinates than managers/superiors, or that the school sector a school leader works in is a strong indicator for the risks of threats of violence or bullying they face. However, these details do not obscure the larger picture, which is that a key site of ideological formation and embedding are imbued to a shockingly high degree with gendered violence. The authors note that change within schools cannot be achieved without coordinating attitudinal reset programs within schools with programs in other institutions and sites in society, the point could just as easily be made in the other direction. This is powerful research, throwing light on an aspect of work in Australia that sorely needs it.