Child neglect and its identification in school settings: Perspectives of teachers, prospective teachers, and pupils in Israel

Child neglect is considered the most prevalent type of child maltreatment, yet it is the type least studied partly due to a lack of clear and united definition. As schools are a critical setting in children’s lives, teachers are essential actors in identifying child neglect. The limited available literature points to gaps in teachers' knowledge and insecurity about the topic. Thus, the current study tries to untangle how child neglect is perceived and identified by three groups within the educational setting: teachers, prospective teachers, and pupils. Twenty-five focus groups with a total of 151 Arab and Jewish Israeli participants were conducted. Inductive thematic analysis revealed two main themes. The first theme of knowledge and understanding of child neglect refers to recognizing neglectful lack of actions of neglect and those responsible for it. The second theme focused on identifying child neglect within the educational setting and the barriers to recognition. The study findings generally show that participants had a reasonable familiarity with the concept of child neglect and its typologies. Participants did not give special focus to the academic aspects when describing child neglect but did identify, uniquely, the school setting as a possible source of neglect. Participants described common ways for recognizing child neglect, focusing on children's behavior and attitudes. Surprisingly, only small differences were found between the perspectives of teachers, prospective teachers, and pupil participants, and between Arabs and Jews. The study findings and implications for the education setting and education training are discussed.