Vicious circle of School violence: Some psychosocial factors related to School bullying

Abstract

This study is investigating some dimensions of violence in schools as well as risk factors by examining psychological and social factors contributing to school bullying problem. We were interested, to know more about its impacts on victim attitudes towards school and explore the importance of friendship to protect and support victims of bullying as well as the risk of being bullied regularly in a long-term wich impacts negatively their psychological adjustment and turned school into an area of violence.

The quantity of victims friendships was evaluated by the revised bully/victim questionnaire of Dan Olweus (1996-2006) a well as the relationship between victimization and participating in bullying others. The findings are based on a random sample of 733 students from public middle school of Algiers during the school year 2013/2014.

The results obtained from analysis of data showed a strong correlation between the status of victims of bullying and number of friends in the class, students victims of bullying, had negative attitudes towards school. There is also a strong correlation between being victim of bullying and duration of exposure to bullying as well as participating in bullying others.

We concluded that Understanding the importance of friendship in building attitudes towards school will prevent from risk factors encouraging school violence culture and converting victims of bullying into bullies.