Abstract:

School climate is a key factor that is reflected in all levels of school functioning as an educational institution. It determines how individual actors of education are satisfied and fulfill their roles - how the teachers teach at school, how pupils are motivated for learning, and how effective teaching is. Undoubtedly, it is also a determining factor in the perception of the school by the parents of children. Everyone is also involved in shaping the school climate, but as a key variable in setting the school's social climate level, it is primarily the school headmasters and their leadership style, managerial, professional and social competences.

If the environment is set authoritatively, competitively without adequate communication, it creates a space for several conflicts, from which they can develop from psychological aggression to the signs of bullying in the workplace. We consider the occurrence of this phenomenon in the school environment to be a serious ethical problem that can fundamentally affect the functioning of the school as an educational institution. The main objective of our study was to map out how elementary school headmasters perceive their workplaces and interpersonal relationships within them. To obtain the data an one-dimensional assessment scale was used to measure the perception of the social climate among the headmasters. A Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-R) was used to identify the headmasters who experienced bullying at the workplace. The research sample consisted of 377 elementary school headmasters from Czech Republic, of which 77 were men and 300 women. The results of the survey point to the fact that there is a negative correlation between the workplace bullying experience and perception of school climate among the school headmasters. Gender differences were identified as well.

Keywords:

School, school climate, aggression, bullying at the workplace, headmasters.