Misbehaviour in girls' secondary schools in Gozo : genesis and management

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the most 'popular' misconduct among female teenagers in Gozo and what is being done to diminish it. This theme was selected because of its fundamental importance to any form of schooling. The first chapter is an introduction to this dissertation while the second chapter provides an examination of literature related to reasons why students misbehave, how teachers deal with misbehaviour and types of misbehaviour. In this study, questionnaires, observations and interviews were used for the gathering of data. The questionnaires were distributed to Form 1 and Form 5 teachers. Following this, the researcher spent around thirty-five hours observation in Form 1 and Form 5 classes. Finally, the researcher interviewed the disciplinary board in school A and the Form Teacher of Form 1 and Form 5 in school B. Thus, the researcher did a triangulation study for the sake of accuracy. The findings of this study show that chatting with peers is the most frequent type of misbehaviour and the most irritating for teachers. In cases of misbehaviour, teachers indicated that they prefer giving rules or reason it out with students than to punish them. Moreover, this study shows that visits by social workers and child psychologists should be frequent to help students with problems of misbehaviour.