Opinions of the Class Teachers towards “Privacy” and its Violation *

Article History: Purpose: The aim of this study is to reveal the opinions of teachers in terms of the right to privacy at school, both in the class and individually, and the violation of this right. Research Methods: Data was collected using a qualitative interview method. 21 teachers from state schools and 15 from two private schools, in total 36 class teachers, in Aydın, who taught in the 2015-2016 academic year participated, and the data was analyzed via content analysis. Received: 05 November 2016 Received in revised form: 16 August 2017 Accepted: 25 September 2017 DOI: 10.14689/ejer.2017.71.2


Introduction
The only thing given equally to all human beings is life itself.Although some activities are shared with others, other activities are contained in an individual's private space where the individual chooses to exclude others.This is defined as the individual's private life.Societies have legally protected the individual freedom to maintain secrecy regarding a person's private life.The right to privacy is also an important issue in the workforce.Organizations have also made regulations to protect the privacy of their employees' private lives.In this section, we will explain the concepts of private life and the right of privacy are explained, outline the national and international legal basis of this freedom, and then, discuss the teachers' rights to privacy and the violation of this right based on research conducted at the state primary school and private primary schools.

The Concepts of Private Life
"Private life" as a concept is defined as "The individual's own idiosyncratic way of life, life style and his attitude and behavior concerning himself" in the dictionary of Turkish Language Society (2015).In Oxford Dictionary (2015), it is defined as "not being disturbed and watched by others, being alone".A person's name, surname, gender identity, ethnic identity, image, honor and reputation, physical and psychological integrity, sexual life, and personal passages are included in private life (Yutsever, 2015).Inness (1992) argues that private life is confidential, and it is to control life itself.There are four dimensions of private life: loneliness, the state of being alone and not being noticed; confidentiality, having confidential relationships with others within small social groups; hiding oneself, the ability to not be recognized among people and keeping silent so as not to be recognized; and timidity, protecting personal information and putting up psychological barriers (Tang & Dong, 2006).In their article, "The Right of Privacy", published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, Warren and Brandeis became the first researchers to term the right of privacy as a concept and share this concept to large masses.In a related article, they analyzed such topics as securing general rights for every individual, the right to choose in what way individuals will express thoughts, feelings, and emotions to others, and the right of loneliness (Kosseff, 2008).People's living space is divided into three dimensions: "common space, private space and hidden space".Common space is the area that everybody sees and knows, in which everyday things happen.Private space refers to the place and time that people choose to only share with their friends and close relatives.Hidden space consists of secret events, information, and documents which are necessary or desired to be kept secret (Bates, 1964;Aydin, 1998).One can act and think freely in his hidden space, and it is only possible to learn about a person's hidden space when the individual grants permission and access.The hidden space includes an individual's unshared thoughts and beliefs, health problems, special moments, and emotional connections.The individual's "right to be alone" is also included in this hidden space (Karaman-Kepenekci & Taskin, 2011;Tierney & Koch, 2016).
The right of privacy is a fundamental right that guarantees freedom and respect for the individual's private and family life.With the development of technology, the protection of this right has become increasingly tenuous, and the use of such devices as cameras, recording devices, etc., has become a threat contributing to the violation of privacy (Aras, 2010).The 1982 Constitution, Turkish Criminal Law, and Turkish Civil Law both directly and indirectly relate to the right of privacy and protection of private life.Individual rights to privacy are also protected under international law.
The Freedom of the Teachers' Privacy According to Mawdsley (2004), private life for teachers is separated into four areas: first, the private personal life of the teachers; second, physical private life in regards to life and property safety; third, educational private life which includes their knowledge and skills in an educational environment; and finally, relational private life defined as the freedom to engage in relationships with the students and other faculty or staff outside the workplace and includes the level of private life with the students both in and out of school.According to Horn (2008), the classes are part of the individual private space of teachers and thus are included in the context of teachers' private lives.Teachers protect the private life of the class when they refrain from disclosing any events that occur while teaching or during classroom activities outside of the classroom.Although, sharing these events with other outside the classroom may not constitute a crime, they represent a violation of the private life of the class.In some schools today, the teachers' school lives are being recorded by security cameras.In some schools, even parents are able to watch their children, their class, and their teachers over the internet.In a sense, this is a violation of the private life of the class (Spencer & Hoffman, 2001).However, Chanin (1970) argues that if a teacher's attitudes and behaviors are dangerous, harmful, or unprofessional to students, other teachers, or staff, those attitudes and behaviors cannot be included within the scope of the teachers' private life in class; those who exhibit such behaviors can be excluded from the teaching profession.
There are some events that happen in the school that only the school staff should know about; these constitute the private life of the school.Sharing confidential situations with others is a violation of the privacy of school life (Imber & Geel, 2010;Kauffman & Lane, 2014;Mawdsley, 2004).According to Imber & Geel (2010), problems with confidentiality at schools cause conflict between the administration of the school and teachers.These problems often arise when the administration focuses on controlling teachers' personal life style choices and behaviors and when administrators try to obtain information about teachers' private lives.
The claim has been made that teachers who share their professional or private considerations, practices, materials etc., with colleagues threaten the secrecy culture in schools even if they are known as good colleagues at school.When teachers share private events in class with other teachers, they are in fact unconsciously violating the private life of the class (Rosenholtz, 1985;Szczesiul, 2007).On the other hand, by interviewing teachers from 16 different state and private elementary schools, McLaughlin (1992) found that teachers who felt they did not receive any help and support from their colleagues and who were more inclined to conceal their private lives were more nervous.McLaughlin (1992) further determined that teachers who attach great importance to privacy in their personal lives are rule-makers and tend to view their work as being routine, highly bureaucratic, and unchangeable.In interviews with 10 branch teachers, Kauffman & Lane (2014) reported that teachers expressed that the development of standard rules and criterions for the storage of private information at schools, the establishment of a confidentiality culture, the mutual determination to not exceed confidentiality limits, and the placement of boundaries within relationships are key principles to protecting privacy.Little (1990) found in his study that interactions between teachers did not threaten the confidentiality of their private lives and professional solidarity.
Based on this research, it is clear that teachers have lives at school, in the classroom itself, as well as their own individual private lives.In order to preserve their privacy in all three areas, teachers have a set of legal rights and freedoms.However, these rights and freedoms can sometimes be violated.There is very little research mentioned in the literature that examines these violations of privacy in school settings, which significantly increases the significance of the research.Therefore, this study is thought to be a pioneer for future studies.This study was conducted to examine the opinions of class teachers regarding the scope of "the freedom of private life" and "the violation of private life" at school, both in the class and individually.Our general objective ans problem statement is: "What are class teachers' opinions regarding 'the privacy of private life' and 'its violation'"?Based on this primary objective, the following sub-objectives were also examined: 1. What are the opinions of class teachers in terms of situations that are regarded as private to the school, class, and individual? 2. What are the opinions of class teachers in terms of situations that violate the privacy of the school, class, and individual?

Research Design
This study is designed as a descriptive study (Karasar, 1991) and gives a detailed description of the subject the researchers aim to cover (Buyukozturk, Cakmak, Akgun, Karadeniz & Demirel, 2008).We adopted a qualitative research approach as it allows us to work on deep and detailed subjects, study fewer people and situations, and provides more and more detailed information (Patton, 2014).This particular study is a case study.A case study requires the investigation and description of a specific situation within the current environment in the real world (Creswell, 2016).In a case study, existing situations are interpreted and defined.The case in this study is a violation of privacy and private life.

Research Sample
The study group is composed of a total of 36 teachers.21 of the teachers work at a state school and the other 15 worked at two private schools for the 2015-2016 academic year in Aydın.The study group was determined on a voluntary basis.When the study group was selected, purposeful sampling method was used (Monette, Sullivan & Dejong, 1990).It is accepted that the purposefully selected sample will represent the population (Tavsancil & Aslan, 2001).The demographics of the participants are given in Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of the Sample
According to Table 1, 12 female and 9 male class teachers from the state primary school; 6 female and 9 male class teachers from the private primary school participated in the research.10 teachers were 31-40 ages, 12 teachers were 41-50, 10 teachers 51-60 and 2 teachers were older than 60 ages.26 teachers worked in this school in 1-5 years, 6 worked in 6-10 years and 4 worked 11 and more.

Research Instrument and Procedure
A semi-structured interview form was developed by the researchers following a review of the literature.The final interview form was approved by two expert academicians and by the pre-application with two teachers.Face-to-face interviews were conducted and voice recordings were taken and later transcribed.Some of the participants did not want their interviews recorded, so their answers were any voice recordings, their opinions were noted down in the interview itself.The opinions of the participants were presented by giving a code.In this study, in order to provide validity, "analyzer triangulation, participant validation and direct citation" was used (Creswell, 2016;Merriam, 2013;Patton, 2014;Yildirim & Simsek, 2006).The Miles & Huberman (1994) formula was used to calculate the reliability of the analyses.In this study, the inter-researcher reliability was calculated as 95%.Hall & Houten (1983) states that there must be at least 70% consensus between the researchers in coding qualitative research.The transcribed interview responses were analyzed using content analysis methods (Kus, 2007;Mason, 2002;Patton, 1990;Rubin & Rubin, 1995;Yildirim & Simsek, 2006).Codes were given to identify participations and their real names were changed (State School Teacher: ST, Private School Teacher: PT; Participant 1 Male: Ahmet; Participant 1 Female: Asli etc.).

Results
In this section, findings related to teachers' reports of situations which are regarded as the private life of the school, class, or teacher as well as situations regarding the violation of private life are given.

Findings Related to the Situations Regarded As the Private Life of the School
The distribution of the state primary and private primary school teachers' opinions are given in Table 2.

Distribution of the Private Life of the School
According to Table 2, the for the purposes of this study, the schools private life were divided into three sub-categories: "interpersonal relationships", "group activities", and "problems".The vast majority of participants categorized interpersonal relationships at school as within the scope of the school's private life.Participants then argued that group activities in the school and problems in the school were also encompassed within the scope of the private life of the school.When opinions were compared and analyzed between teachers at the state school and private school, we found that 85% of the responses from participants in the state primary school were about interpersonal relations, 9% were about group activities, and 6% were about problems experienced at school; whereas, 86% of the opinions of the participants in the private primary school were about interpersonal relationships, 14% were about group activities, and none of the responses from the private school setting were in regards to problems opinions were in the category of problems experienced at school.The examples to the responses of the teachers: • "The activities performed in the school, private situations related to the staff and students are the private life of the school" (ST Ecesu).
• "When the point is the private life of school, what comes to my mind is the school meetings.We have to attend these meetings and keep what is spoken during the meetings secret" (PT Ali).

Findings Related to the Situations Regarded As a Violation of the Private Life of the School
While 52% of the class teachers working at state primary schools thought that the school's private life was violated, the remaining 48% believed that it was not violated.67% of private primary school teachers thought that the school's private life was violated and 33% believed that it was not.The examples to the responses of the teachers: • "Especially because of the fact that technological devices have become widespread, students or parents give away what happened at school and even in class through for example 'whatsapp'" (ST Ahmet).
• "I don't think the private life of the school is violated.I have never heard something like that" (PT İlke).
The class teachers working in the state primary schools thought that the private life of the school was most often violated by teachers and parents, followed by the administrators, the students, and finally, the canteen owners.In contrast, teachers at the private school believed that the private life of the school was violated most often by parents, followed by teachers, administrators, and finally students, respectively.The examples to the responses of the teachers: • "Teachers gossip the dialogues of other teachers to school administration and other teachers" (ST Ayse).
• "Parents share everything with each other.They write everything from especially 'whatsapp' to each other" (PT Hasan).
In the state primary school, the teachers stated that what was experienced at school was transferred from teachers to her teachers, from parents to other parents, from parents to neighbors, from parents to teachers, from parents to administrators, from administrators to teachers, from students to other students, and from students to parents, respectively.In private primary schools, it was determined that school experiences were transferred from parents to other parents, from teacher to teacher, from parents to administrators, from parents to teachers, and from teachers to administrators and from administrators to teachers, respectively.

Findings Related to the Situations Regarded As the Private Life of the Class
The participants were asked to identify what situations fall within the scope of the class's private life, and their responses were divided into three sub-categories: "interpersonal relationships", "group activities", and "the problems experienced".The distribution of the state primary and private primary school teachers' responses are given in Table 3.According to Table 3, the vast majority of participants thought that interpersonal relationships at school were within the scope of the class's private life, and 51% were reported for this sub-category.Participants then argued that group activities in the class and the problems experienced in the class were within the scope of the private life of the class.When the distribution of responses in terms of state and private primary schools related to the situations regarded as the private life of the class were analyzed and compared between state and private schools, we found that 51% of responses from the participants in state primary school were about interpersonal relations, 27% were about group activities, and 23% were about problems experienced in class whereas, 52% of responses from the private primary school were about interpersonal relationships, 31% were about group activities, and 17% were about problems experienced in class.The examples to the responses of the teachers: • "Events experienced in the class are privacy of the class, but it is not possible to keep them secret.The private school parents make tactics to get words about what happened in the class when the child comes home in the evening" (PT Nejat).
• "The jokes we make in the class, tensions, attitudes and behaviors of the teacher during the lesson, the emotions of a distressed student, the attitudes of the teachers and the students to the situation, our sharing" (ST Elif).

Findings Related to the Situations Regarded As the Violation of the Private Life of the Class
While 86% of teachers working at state primary schools thought that the class's private life was violated, 14% believed that it was not violated.All the private primary school teachers thought that the class's private life was violated.The examples of the responses of teachers: • "The administration of the school can share with other teachers, and is spread afterwards.The vice principal told me that X teacher's class was infested with lice" (ST Mehmet).
• "Yes, I think that parents violate.They share everything on 'whatsapp'…" (PT Murat) The class teachers working in the state primary schools thought that the private life of the class was violated most often by parents and students, followed by teachers, and least often by administrators and neighbors.Teachers at the private primary schools believed that the class's private life was violated most often by parents followed by students, teachers, and administrators, respectively.The examples of the responses of teachers: • "The fact that parents bring their pupils breakfast as they hadn't had at home, and that they ask the situation of the student in the middle of the lesson" (ST Ahmet).
• "I've heard that teachers smoke in teachers' room, drink tea and talk on the phone in the lesson, and that the class was infested with lice etc." (ST Mehmet) In the state primary school, the teachers stated that what was experienced in the class was transferred from students to their parents, from parents to other parents, teachers among themselves and to other teachers, from students to teachers, from administrators to teachers, from parents to teachers, from teachers to administrators, from administrators to other administrators, and from parents to administrators.In private primary schools, it was determined that information about private life was transferred from parents to other parents, from students to their parents, from parents to teachers, and from teachers to parents.

Findings Related to the Situations Regarded As the Private Life of the Teacher
The class teachers working at state and private primary schools were asked to identify situations that fall within the scope of the teacher's private life and their responses were divided into three sub-categories: "physical condition/equipment", "the behaviors and relationships of teachers", and "the problems experienced".The distribution of the state primary and private primary school teachers' responses are given in Table 4.

Table 4
The distribution of the teacher's views of private life According to Table 4, the vast majority of participants thought that the physical condition/equipment belonging to the teachers were within the scope of the teacher's private life.21 participant responses were categorized as the behaviors and relationships of teachers, and 16 responses were categorized as relating to the problems experienced/special occasions.By analyzing and comparing the distribution of responses between state and private primary schools, we found that 12% of the responses from participants in state primary schools were about the physical condition/equipment belonging to the teachers, 48% were about the behaviors and relationships of teachers, and 40% were about problems experienced/special occasions.Among the private primary school teachers, 90% of the responses were about physical condition/equipment belonging to the teachers and 10% were about the behaviors and relationships of teachers.The examples to the responses of the teachers: • "My attitudes towards the events experienced at school and in the class, my style of teaching, my sharing in terms of the relationships with the students, parents and teachers" (ST Ayse).While 64% of the participants thought that teachers private lives were violated, 36% believed they were not.While 38% of state primary school teachers thought that teachers private lives were violated, 62% believed that they were not.In contrast, all the private primary school teachers thought that the teacher's private life was violated.The examples to the responses of teachers:

Categories
• "A topic discussed in teachers' room with my colleagues can be conveyed to administration in a different way.I've stated that day watch was not properly organized; and then I've felt that our administrators have heard it later" (ST Selda).

• "As a teacher, I don't feel like my private life has been violated." (ST Erkan).
The state primary school teachers thought that the private lives of teachers were violated by other teachers most often, followed by parents and students, and finally, administrators.Private primary school teachers believed that the teachers' private lives were violated most often by parents, administrators, teachers, and students, respectively.The examples of the responses of teacher's: • "We have teachers who think that they are perfect, and that they have the permission to criticize others.Teachers grouped with each other are transferring to each other" (ST Asli).
• They feel pleasure to convey home when you get angry with a pupil or others, or other occasions" (PT Sema).
In the state primary school, it was stated that information about private life was transferred from students to their parents; teachers among themselves and to other teachers; from administrators to teachers, from parents to other parents; and from students to other students, parents and teachers, respectively.In private primary schools, it was determined that the information about the teachers' private life was transferred from students to parents and from parents to other parents; from teachers among themselves and to other teachers and from teachers to administrators, respectively.

Discussion and Conclusion
Just as people have private lives, the school, class, and individual teachers also have private lives.The private life of the school is a situation that is peculiar to the school, belongs to the school, and must be kept confidential.The private life of the class is a field that contains many things that occur within the class, ranging from student and teacher relations to classroom climate and relations with the parents.The individual private life of the teacher encompasses all that concerns only the teacher, for example, a teacher's choice of clothes, table, closet, teaching methods, and techniques etc.The private life of the school, the class, and the teacher must be protected, and private information about these areas should not be shared with others.However, in places where there are other people involved, a violation of private life is sometimes inevitable.
Although Little (1990) revealed that relationships and communication among teachers did not produce results that would affect teachers' private lives, our study shows that in both private and state primary schools, the private life of the school and class is primarily composed of interpersonal relationships (teacher-student, teacher-parent, teacher-teacher etc.).Even when it came to the private life of the class, nearly all the teachers in state primary school and all the teachers in private primary schools claimed that the private life of the class was violated.
While the teachers in the state primary school viewed the teacher's group activities and interpersonal relationships as within the private life of the teacher, the teachers working in private primary schools included everything that falls within the context of the physical condition and equipment of the class, such as the teacher's closet, suitcase, drawer in the teacher's private life.While more than half of the teachers working in the state primary school thought that the private life of the teacher was not violated, all the teachers working in private primary schools thought that the private life of the teacher was violated.In state primary schools, the private life of the school and the teacher was usually violated by other teachers; whereas the private life of the class was violated by the parents and students.In private primary schools, parents usually violated the private life of both the school and the class and the teacher.Private primary school teachers expressed that they shared all kinds of information in 'whatsapp' groups they created, that nothing was kept secret, and that everything experienced at school and in the classroom, including those falling within the private life of the parents or anything about the teacher, was transmitted to one another in this way.Spencer & Hoffman (2001) reported that the most important factor violating the privacy of schools is security cameras, but such a conclusion was not reflected in the teachers' responses in this study.This can be interpreted by the fact that the schools included in this research did not use security cameras and even if they had, studies indicate they would not cause any disturbing problems in terms of violating private life.Although cameras can be seen to violate a school's private life, they are very important elements in the school security (Kiral & Kizilkaya, 2016;Kiral & Yildiz, 2016).McLaughlin (1992) interviewed teachers in 16 different public and private elementary schools and found that teachers who were making an effort to keep their private lives secret were more prescriptive and fixed-minded.Horn (2008) also reported that teachers' private areas have categories, and that the things they do and speak in this area and their behaviors are private.In particular, the private primary school teachers in this study expressed opinions consistent with the results of Horn's research.In parallel with the results of this research, in interviews with ten branch leaders, Kauffman and Lanen (2014) also found that teachers expressed opinions asking for an increase in the teachers' limits of personal confidentiality at schools and a desire for their relationships to be more distant.
Within the literature over the past years, research has primarily examined the result of increase social media (facebook, Instagram etc.) on the violation of the private life of the students (Acilar & Mersin, 2015;Celik, 2017;Dogan & Karakas, 2016;Kiral, 2016;Kulcu & Henkoglu, 2014;Oz, 2014).But there are no studies directly related to ours.The study is different from others.In this study where the private life of the school, the class and the teacher and their violation was investigated, all of the private primary school teachers and a majority of state primary school teachers were in the view of the fact that private life of the class and the teacher was violated.When the results related to the violation of the school's private life were examined, most of both state and private primary school teachers were in the view of a violation.As a result of this research, we can assume that similar results would exist in other schools.A situation that can be generalized by most of the participants was the fact that the private life of the school, the class and the teacher was violated.It would be beneficial for teachers, administrators, students, and parents to be informed about both the freedom of privacy in general and the scope and in particular, the limits of the private life of the school, the class.Seminars should be organized to ensure that parents of private schools are especially educated about the private life of the school, the class, and the teacher.It is necessary that continuous warnings should be made so that parents comply with scheduled times for parental interviews, and that parents who come to meet the teachers should wait for them in specially designated areas for parents.For this, lounges should be prepared, parents should be informed of interview hours should be informed to parents from on the school websites as well as written communication, via short messages and in written form, and the school guidance service should be in constant contact with the parents whenever necessary.In order to generalize the conclusions of this research, which was conducted using a qualitative approach, and to be able to make comparisons, further research about the privacy of private life can be conducted via quantitative data collection tools in other educational institutions.