BULLYING AS DRIVER OF LOW MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT: SOUTH AFRICAN NO-FEE-PAYING SCHOOLS IN A CHALLENGED CONTEXT

Abstract

Children in South Africa have the right to quality education free from harm. Still, incidents of school bullying continue to dominate South African news coverage. Creating a safe environment conducive to learning is vital to mathematics achievement (MA). We investigated the association between bullying and Grade 9 MA in South African public institutions that do not charge tuition. In South Africa, ordinary public schools are divided into five quintiles, with Quintiles 1 to 3 being in the most economically disadvantaged (poorest) geographic locations (no-fee-paying schools) and Quintiles 4 and 5 being in the wealthiest geographical areas (fee-paying schools). This study only considers schools in Quintiles 1 to 3 and uses Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory to investigate MA in a less-researched context (Global South) in schools in the most economically disadvantaged locations. We followed a quantitative design with a research paradigm of positivism and a secondary data analysis study design. We analysed Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) 2019 data, and, at Grade 9 level, South Africa was second to last in MA. We constructed a multi-level model containing 21 constructs; 20 independent variables (gender, socio-economic status (SES) and 18 bullying variables), with the dependent variable being MA. At learner-level, the unsurprising results were that learners who have been refused to talk to, their family insulted, made to do things they didn’t want to do, sent nasty or hurtful messages online, shared nasty or hurtful things or embarrassing photos about them online and physically hurt, performed significantly worse than those where these occurrences happened less frequently. A surprising result is that learners who indicated they had been stolen from or had mean things said about their physical appearance outperformed learners where this was happening less frequently. For these results that seem counterintuitive, we give some suggestions on why this may be the case. At school-level, principals’ beliefs concerning the level of severity of intimidation or verbal abuse amongst learners was a significant predictor. Learners must be reminded that there are clear policies that punish perpetrators of bullying. Since e-Learning has grown exponentially over the last two years due to COVID-19, we urge the inclusion of cyber-safety and cyber-protection strategies in all learner-teacher training. From the counterintuitive results, this study challenges deficit views by showing how learners living in disadvantaged areas and in a challenged context resile despite being bullied.