School Bullying in primary school: students' and teachers' opinions

Asimakopoulos Ch., Chatzipemos Th., Soumaki E., Diareme S., Giannakopoulou D., Tsiantis G.

Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents

Greek

English

School violence, victimization

Report

Teachers, Researchers.

1 - 20 pages

This article presents the qualitative research results on primary school students’ and professors opinions regarding school bullying. At the beginning, the article refers to the forms of school bullying, its extension, victims’ and bullies’ characteristics, as well as the psychological impacts to the victims. Furthermore, it refers to the transnational project “Daphnes”, which (among else) made a research regarding school bullying. More specifically, interviews with both professors and students were held. Results show that students recognize and understand the school bullying phenomenon and identify it as an important problem. They experience its consequences from the 1st grade of primary school and seek help from adults in order to face it. When describing bullying, students seem to have a holistic and complex opinion on it and give possible causes related to the experiences and the characteristics of those involved in it. Bullying can be described as the result of personal characteristics, like physical size or appearance, psychological issues related to family problems or racism. According to teachers, bullying is the result of students’ psycho-pathological characteristics, family problems. Added to that, parents may have a lack of interest in cooperating with teachers, or can be a result of racism, absence of a support network at school, weakness of the educational system itself. Last but not least, the article presents conclusions and suggestions for facing the phenomenon.

This article was chosen because it presents the most important results of the qualitative research that was held by the “Daphnes” transnational project, regarding teachers’ and students’ opinions regarding school bullying. This project is maybe the only organized effort to study the phenomenon. Several research centers and universities participate in this effort, as well as services from Greece, Cyprus, Germany and Lithuania. The project partners in Greece are the Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents (A.P.H.C.A.) and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which apply the project in Athens and Thessaloniki respectively. Project objectives are:
• Prevention through needs assessment and recording, as well as bullying behaviors recognition and early detection in primary and secondary school.
• Resolution through organised prevention in primary school to students, teachers and parents, in order to minimize the danger
• Evaluation of prevention and
• target groups information and sensitization
The article presents the study of teachers’ and students’ opinions and more specifically it lists the project participants, the methodology used and the results.

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