various factors that interplay and interrelate with one another in the production of school violence, Evans and Evans (1985) report that, overall, the greatest incidence of classroom violence against students as well as teachers occurs in the seventh grade; in other words, it occurs while students are attending middle school.
While, over the years, there have been some studies examining teachers' and/or principals' perceptions of school violence and how it has affected their lives and careers (e.g. Brodbelt, 1978; Ianni & Reuss-Ianni, 1980; Urben, 1986; Williams, 1991), there have been no studies which have examined whether perceptions might be different depending upon differences in the demographic make-up or personality profiles of teachers. This despite the fact that there exists a substantial body of psychosocial research establishing the variables such as attitudes, values, perceptions, opinions, and so forth do differ in relation to differences in the characteristics of the perceiver (see: Lindgren & Harvey, 1992; Babaldelis, 1993).
The characteristics of the perceiver can sometimes interact with what is being perceived and so change it. (Babaldelis, 1993). In other words, if certain teachers tend to be rigid personalities, they can actually interact with students in such a way as to foster students' violent tendencies rather than to reduce these. Similarly, a black teacher may say something to a student that does not foster anger while the same comment made by a white teacher would elevate violence. Thus, it seems reasonable to examine perceptions of school violence for associations with such factors as personality and perceiver demographics.
In addition, educators can and often do differ in their views of education and education-related issues as a function of educator status differences, i.e. whether they are teachers, staff members, administrators, etc. (Toby, 1993). This finding suggests that future researc...