Bullying in early years at school: case study

Abstract

Bullying is an old, widespread and worldwide problem. According to Pinheiro (2006); Bullying is recognized as a form of violence in schools as well as in educational institutions. Several negative long term consequences both for students who bully and for their victims were reported in different literatures for years. School, teachers, and the rights of a student to learn in a safe environment without fear may get affected by bullying. People in different countries have different perceptions on bullying concepts and bullying may occur in different forms; verbal or physical aggression. The effects of being bullied and bullying others in elementary school on education, health and risky behaviors were also investigated in several researches (Vlachou, Andreou, Botsoglou, & Didasakalou, 2011; Synder, Brooker, patrick & Synder, 2003; Kirves & Sajaniemi,2012).It has also been found that being bullied and bullying reduces GPA by around 20o/o of its standard deviation (Eriksen, Nielsen & Simonsen, 2012). The objective of this research was to gain insight about the effect of being bullied based on student's individual experience. This study was a qualitative research where three cases have been developed based on real experience ofthree students from early grades' Their parents were also interviewed in reference to their experience. Themes have been discussed to gain deeper understanding on bulling incident in the context of Bangladesh. While exploring nature of bullying in early childhood, most of the bullying was found in the form of physical bullying and verbal bultying and place of bulling incident is inside the school. The aggressive behavior of bully and playing pattern was found mostly as reason behind bullying or being bullied. Hence, a gender difference in bullying also found that boys are more likely to be involved in bullying and being bullied. Effects of bullying on students as individual was studied rigorously based on three student's experience. It has been found that, bullying effected children not only physically but also they get depressed and in some cases suppressed. As bullying is a social phenomenon, it was found that children tended to avoid bully or socially withdraw. Moreover. different findings came about teachers' perception and their management of bullying incidents. Parents'understanding on bullying incident was also come into light. Based on findings a set of recommendations were developed for school level, for teachers and also idea for a larger scale study was suggested to develop anti-bullying programme.