The M.A. thesis discusses the problem of violence committed by pupils and students against pedagogical workers; to be specific, it discusses how the pedagogical workers confront different types of violence committed by pupils and students. The primary goals of the thesis are to explore the pedagogical workers' experiences with a certain type of violence and to contribute to an increased visibility and understanding of the problem. In the theoretical part of the thesis a variety of definitions of the term 'violence' are presented, as well as the theories of aggression, which familiarize the reader with the subject discussed. In the continuation there are described the types of violence present in the school area, concerning the pupil and student’s violent behaviour against the pedagogical workers. The factors influencing the development of violent behaviour are presented, as well as models for their research. As the thesis is focused on the type of violence present in the school area, we emphasize the roles of pedagogical workers and school managers when dealing with the problem, especially the role of school consultancy services, where social pedagogical workers are often employed. The intention of the empirical part is to explore the experiences and confrontation of the pedagogical workers with different kinds of violence committed by pupils and students and, on the foundation of the results obtained, to lay out the guidelines for the work of school consultancy services when offering help to the pedagogical workers in that area. The research on how and how often the pedagogical workers confront a certain type of violence is included, as well as the research on how support and help are offered and the pedagogical workers’ level of satisfaction with them. The model includes pedagogical workers of the primary and secondary schools in the City of Ljubljana. The information was collected through questionnaires and interviews. 42 interviewees answered the questionnaire, while 8 pedagogical workers participated in the interview. The participants hold the opinion that violence committed by pupils and students against the pedagogical workers in the school area is present and, regarding the frequency, it ranks immediately after peer violence. The results show that the type of violence the pedagogical workers most frequently face is psychological abuse. Most often they share their experiences with violence with other teachers, family members and friends, as well as with the school consultants. There is still a large percentage of those that rarely or only sometimes speak of violence and they claim that the reasons for that are feelings of unworthiness/unsuccessfulness, their co-workers’ ridicule, feelings of powerlessness, the doubt about the school consultancy services’/the school management’s support and bad experiences when the measures have been taken before. They are commonly satisfied with the response of the person, whom they share their experiences with and they get help through talk, seminars and workshops. It is also appreciated if an appropriate sanction is applied against the pupil or student. When suffering violence, the pedagogical workers request for more support from the school management, group (intervision, self-help groups) and individual types of help. It has been shown that the pedagogical workers are mostly not well-familiarized with the understanding of the factors that contribute to the occurrence of violent behaviour, as well as with the knowledge on how to work with the pupils and students that act aggressively.
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