Bullying among primary school children in Athens, Greece

Lena Pateraki, Anastasia Houndoumadi

Educational Psychology

English

English

Bullies, victims, age, gender

Research

Policy Makers.

1 - 20 pages

Starting from the international findings of large scale systematic studies regarding the bullying phenomenon, the authors stress the necessity for the conduction of such a study in Greece. The group of investigated pupils is aged from 7-11 years and the goals of the research are to categorize them in 3 sub-groups of bullies, victims and bully/victims, to identify the forms in which bullying appears and the reactions each form causes, and finally to investigate the role of age and gender. The sample used consists of 1312 pupils spread representatively over all socio-economic areas of Athens. The Olweus questionnaire as revisited by Smith has been adopted to the Greek context and language and used. The results show 14.7% of the children self-categorized as victims, 6.25% as bullies and 4.8% as bully/victims. Gender plays an important role in bullying incidents. Significantly more boys were self-identified as bullies and bully/victims. The two most common forms of bullying were ‘name calling’ and ‘hitting and kicking’. Boy bullies engaged in more direct physical bullying, while girls bullied indirectly. There was a tendency for bullying to decrease with increasing age and take more indirect form. There was evidence of peer pressure as 33.5% reported being forced to join in bullying others. Comparing the results with those of “ international” Bullying indicates that “Greek” Bullying appears at a lower rate. One must take into account though, that the “Greek” Bullying rate shall be higher if the pupils testified it verbally. Nevertheless, the peer pressure to join Bullying against other pupils shall be taken into account as well. To conclude this paper has brought up the Bullying issue and the necessity of making it wide known to teachers and the general public via systematic initiatives.

Reporting down the effort of the pioneers in Greek bullying research is a necessity. The first large scale study carried out in Greece has revealed the existence of Bullying. This paper provides a good measure of the distance of Greece and several other Countries regarding Bullying incidents. It provides a great platform of comparing the role of Age and Gender in Bullying among Greece and several other countries. It has already been a decade since it was published though. The socio-economic status of people in Greece has dramatically changed. The composition of the population has dramatically changed as well. The upcoming Current Population Survey of Greece (ten years later than the previous one) will further enlighten us on the current socio-economic status. The 10th Birthday of the current paper’s publication shall coincide with a repetition of the survey. It shall be used as a guide on comparing Bullying in Greece one decade ago and Bullying in Greece today. It shall be used as a guide on comparing the distance between Greece and other Countries one decade ago and today.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/01443410020043869

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