Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate elementary school teachers’ attitudes towards child sexual abuse according to some variables (gender, age, marital status, seniority in the profession, in service training about child neglect and abuse, training needs and self-readiness to identify the symptoms of sexual abuse). Relational screening model was used in the study. The study group consisted of 406 elementary school teachers (214 females and 192 males) who were in charge at public elementary schools in the central districts of Afyonkarahisar in 2016-2017 academic year. As data collection tools, “Demographical Information Form” and in order to determine the teachers’ attitudes towards child sexual abuse “Teacher Reporting Attitudes Scale - TRAS” developed by Choo, Walsh, Chinna and Tey (2013) and adapted into Turkish by Akın, Yıldız, Uysal and Erguvan (2013) were used. In addition to descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskal-Wallis H Test were used for data analysis since the distributions were not normal. In the case of statistically significant differences in the Kruskal Wallis H Test, Post-Hoc Multiple Comparison Test was utilized to find out between which groups there was a difference. As a result of the study, it was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between the teachers’ attitudes towards child sexual abuse and their gender, age and marital status; however, there was no statistically significant relationship between the attitudes and seniority in the profession, in service training about child neglect and abuse together with training needs, self-readiness to identify the symptoms of sexual abuse.

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