Investigation of school bullying in terms of school factors

Abstract

Bullying, a serious concern for educators, can be defined as repeated aggressive behaviour by a more powerful person or group with the intent to harm or distress a less powerful person. It is emphasised that it is critical to distinguish bullying from other forms of aggression among students because these unique characteristics of bullying make it more harmful than similar forms of aggression. Bullying can occur directly or indirectly. The direct type of bullying involves the performance of aggressive behaviour face-to-face but is not limited to face-to-face. For example, bullies or perpetrators verbally threaten or physically attack the targeted student. When bullying takes an indirect form, the bullies or perpetrators target the student's reputation or social standing when the targeted student is not around, such as spreading upsetting rumours electronically, spreading malicious gossip, or organising a group of students to isolate the targeted student. Additionally, bullying can be witnessed in more than one context. Bullying behaviours in these contexts can take physical, verbal, and social/relational forms. Examples of physical bullying behaviours include damaging personal property, pushing, spitting, kicking and hitting, threatening verbally or with signs or written notes, making inappropriate sexual comments, name-calling and teasing. In this study, school bullying is examined in terms of different factors.