Bullying : its incidence, nature and effects among years 4 & 5 pupils

Abstract

Research has shown that school bullying is a serious problem in Maltese schools. More than ten years have passed since the first local studies and being a dynamic problem bullying must have evolved over this time, as indeed suggested by the international literature. The present study will focus on gathering information about school bullying in general and also on the modern forms of bullying namely cyber bullying (using telephone calls, mobile phone calls, SMSs, internet chatting, and e-mails), as well as racial bullying. A questionnaire survey was carried out children in two large state schools. The study investigated the incidence and nature of bullying, as well as gender, grade, parents' occupation differences and school differences. From the results obtained, it can be deduced that the level of bullying behaviour in Year '4' and Year '5' is quite high. It was found that half of the pupils are being bullied, whilst a considerable amount of the pupils act as bullies. Furthermore, it seems that boys experience bullying and act as bullies more than girls. Moreover, the majority of the victims feel vengeful, self-pity and angry after experiencing bullying and as a result ask for their parents' help. Besides, bullies responded that they mainly bully the same boy all the time. In addition, the most common types of bullying among aggressors are social exclusion, physical aggression and verbal bullying.