The bullying tendency among the 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in primary schools

Bullying in schools is stated as a personal, social and pedagogic problem, which influences an important percentage of school children. In this aspect, the schools must bear the responsibility of providing the children with a safe environment. Also, knowing the bullying tendencies and tendency types of the children will contribute to the success of the nursing initiatives that will be planned to decrease the bullying problems.

 This study was done in order to identify the bullying situations and the resulting grievance, to which 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade primary school students were exposed within the last one month, and the effective factors.    

 The study was performed with a total of 482 students, who used to attend the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade classes of two public primary schools in similar socio-economical parts of Asian side of Istanbul, in the spring semester of 2007. The data of this descriptive study were collected using “Teasing and Bullying Survey- School Form ” and “Personal Information Form”. The data were evaluated in frequencies and chi-square analysis. Necessary permissions of the school administration were taken.

 According to the results of evaluation, it was found that, within the last month, 70 (14.5 %) of the students were bullies, 60 (12.4 %) were victims, 162 (34.2 %) were neither bullies nor victims, 184 (38.2 %) were both bullies and victims. 38 (54.3 %) of the bullies were boys, while 32 (45.7 %) were girls. 37 (61.7 %) of the victims were girls, while 23 (38.3 %) were boys. It was established that 244 (50.6 %) of the students were extremely disturbed by the bullying in school, 90 (18.7 %) students’ success in school was very negatively influenced and 40 (8.5 %) of them had absenteeism due to this problem.