Every student has the right to a safe learning environment, yet so many students have been targets of or witnesses of bullying incidents. In spite of school administration efforts to create effective reporting systems and to implement anti-bullying programs, many students remain silent victims. The present study analyzes data collected from a School Safety Survey through SchoolTipline. This data was used to determine the bullying trends, reporting trends, and reporting preferences of 562 7th and 8th grade students at an urban, suburban, and rural school. The results of this study indicate that bullying continues to be a prevalent issue that students face, but a great majority still fail to report these bullying incidents to school personnel. The results also indicate that there are significant differences in regard to bullying among the urban, suburban, and rural schools, which warrant further research.

Teachers are faced with numerous interruptive bullying behaviors in middle school classrooms, which brought the quality of education into question. Bullying victims have shown decreased rates of academic success, measured by lower grades, compared to those not involved in bullying. The purpose of this basic interpretative qualitative study was to explore the phenomenon of classroom bullying from the perspectives and experiences of 10 middle school teachers. The research questions examined teachers' experiences in witnessing bullying in their classrooms and the strategies they used to identify and effectively avert bullying in school. Bandura's theories of moral disengagement and social learning theory of aggression informed and provided a framework for the research process. Information was gathered from 10 purposefully selected middle school teachers through personal interviews. Data analysis included coding, categorizing, and thematic analysis. The resulting themes revealed that teachers and school counselors played the most important role in bullying prevention. Physical, verbal, and cyberbullying were perceived as the major types of bullying in the middle school. Teachers reported that more bullying professional development was needed. Given the negative short and long term outcomes associated with bullying, the bullying phenomenon merits serious attention for preventive intervention. Social change will be realized when teachers become more knowledgeable of specific school bullying policies and are able to respond effectively to bullying incidents in schools. Subsequently, students will be able to enter peaceful, productive classrooms and schools.

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of physical, verbal and social bullying in high school on the adolescent’s sense of self, thereby improving the knowledge base and insight of counsellors who work with victims of bullying. The objectives of this study were: <ul><li>To build a knowledge base on the problem of bullying using existing literature. The knowledge base was used to form a holistic picture of the problem.</li> <li>To empirically investigate the impact that bullying in the school has on the adolescent’s sense of self.</li> <li>To provide conclusions and recommendations for teachers of school A as well as counsellors who, in the counselling setting, work with bullied children. </li></ul> This quantitative study endeavoured to answer the following research question: “What is the impact of bullying on the adolescent’s sense of self.” The researcher aimed to use the statistical analysis of the empirical study to improve the helping profession’s understanding of the phenomenon. This may lead to more successful intervention strategies on behalf of these adolescents. The study was feasible, as it was within the financial and practical means of the researcher. She had access to the school as she was employed there and obtained permission from the school, Department of Education, parents of participants, the participants themselves and The Ethical Committee of the University of Pretoria. The following themes emerged from the data analysis (when the male and female adolescents’ results were separated) namely: <ul><li>Physical bullying does not affect any parts of the sense of self of the female adolescent but does affect the physical and creative self of the male.</li> <li>Social bullying impacts every part of the female adolescent self but only affects the emotional, behavioural and creative sense of self of the male.</li> <li>Verbal bullying has an impact on every part of the female adolescents sense of self and affects all parts of the male sense of self except the physical and intellectual sense of self.</li></ul> From the research findings, recommendations were made on a micro, macro and exo- level. On a micro-level, this included improved intervention and prevention programmes in schools. On macro-level the researcher is of the opinion that the Department of Education of various districts need to ensure that policies are put in place as well as to support individual schools in their endeavours to stop bullying. On a meso-level, legislation changes and enforcement of the Bill of Human rights in schools are recommended. Copyright / Dissertation (MSD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

The purpose of this dissertation is to extend General Strain Theory (GST) to examine prosocial, asocial, and antisocial behavior in response to bullying. In GST, Agnew (1992; 2001; 2013) asserted that negative emotions can lead to criminal or aggressive coping but there are a number of factors that increase or decrease the propensity to respond aggressively (Agnew, 1992; Richman & Leary, 2009). In this dissertation, I examine whether and how rejection (operationalized as bullying victimization) is associated with aggressive responding as opposed to prosocial (e.g., befriending others) or asocial (e.g., avoiding people and social events) responding. This dissertation consists of three studies testing theoretical variables of bullying victimization as well as behavioral responses to four types of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. Study 1 of this dissertation examines risk and protective factors for types of bullying victimization. Study 2 applies GST to test the effect of social support, or the availability of alternative relationships (i.e., having others to count on or turn to for social support), on responses to four types of bullying. Study 3 tests the effect of power dynamics on responses to physical and relational bullying. In conducting this research, I hope to: 1) integrate interdisciplinary bodies of literature to examine risk and protective factors of bullying victimization and behavioral responses to bullying and 2) improve understanding of how these experiences are affected by the power dynamics involved in bullying. Overall, the results of this dissertation suggest that types of negative emotions and behavioral outcomes vary by type of bullying victimization. Cyber bullying was found to have more negative consequences than any other form of bullying. Across all four forms of bullying, social support was found to be associated with an increased likelihood of youth engaging in prosocial behavior. Implicit power, or the perception that one’s bully has a high social standing at school, significantly influenced responses based on the type of bullying. However, even when controlling for power dynamics, social support was still associated with increased prosocial behavior in response to bullying victimization. Theory and policy implications are discussed.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the frequency and type of bullying behaviours experienced in a Pretoria private high school in the past six months. The aim was to determine how factors such as gender, age and ethnicity influenced the frequency and type of bullying experienced. The different types of bullying behaviours were categorised into physical, indirect, verbal and cyber-bullying. A quantitative method was applied and a self-report questionnaire was administered to 367 learners ranging from ages 12 – 18 (Grade 8 to Grade 12). The results of the study indicated that indirect bullying (such as malicious gossip) was the highest form of bullying reported in the study and occurred equally throughout the grades. However a high amount of bullying in all categories was found in the grade 9 group. Females reported higher frequencies of indirect bullying than males but no differences were found with regards to gender and the other types of bullying. No differences were found between the ethnic groups and physical violence as well as cyber-bullying. Caucasians seem to experience higher frequencies in bullying behaviours when it came to indirect bullying compared to African and Asian learners. Indian learners were also more prone to experience indirect bullying than Asians. Caucasians were also more likely to experience verbal bullying than Asian learners. It was found that racial bullying might occur in the school but that it does so at a minimal level. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted