It grows deep and becomes a tradition : How Gambian teachers interpret and deal with the concept of bullying

Abstract: The aim of this study is to create an increased intercultural understanding by studying how the Gambian teachers interpret and handle situations that from a Swedish perspective could be called bullying. A qualitative method have been used were the materials have been gathered through unstructed observations and interviewes with teachers in the Gambia as well as formalized conversations with other school staff. The data has been collected in different schools in the Gambia during the winter of 2013. Four different theories are used to analyse the result. These are the sociocultural perspective, cultural framework, the postcolonial perspective and the frame factor theory. The result shows that the Gambian teachers have a hard time to describe and define the term bullying. They interpret the concept bullying as corporal punishment and that it is a question about abusive behaviour from an adult towards a child. There is also one teacher that speaks about bullying as something that can occur between pupils as well, but this is a rare opinion. It is obvious that the overloaded classrooms are a big obstacle for the Gambian teachers when it comes to create a positive learning experience were the pupils show mutal respect for each other. There is a risk that teachers are missing a lot of things that are going on behind their backs. There are no written documents on how to work with or prevent bullying. There is one document about corporal punishment and it does only exist in governmental schools.