Abstract

This qualitative study investigated discretionary policies and practices that are used to address violence in public day secondary schools. A review of literature has revealed that most studies on school violence focus on assessing teachers’ and students’ knowledge and prevalence of school-based violence. Not much has been done to explore discretionary policies and practices aimed at addressing the vice. Thirty-six participants from four public day secondary schools in Zomba were purposively selected for the study. The participants included 4 Head teachers, 4 form teachers, 4 parents, and 24 prefects. Data was generated through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and analysis of punishment books. The Stages Model (SM), which is clearly aligned with the processes of policy formulation and implementation, underpinned this study. The study findings indicated that participants knew of school violence and its prevalence in their schools. Secondly, it revealed that perception of school violence differed amongst the study participants. Furthermore, it revealed that the schools did not have discretionary policies and practices that address school violence. In addition, implementation of policies is hindered by favouritism, fear, ignorance, rights, workload, and lack of teacher involvement. In order to address these challenges, it was recommended that there should be an open display of policies in schools, civic education, and teacher involvement in all stages of policy process. It may be interesting to conduct a similar study focussing on whether school contexts have a bearing on approaches for dealing with school violence. Another study that would investigate the causes of school-based violence which would inform policy and practices development at school level.

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School	: School of Education
Issued Date	: 2023

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