Bullying in Greek secondary schools: prevalence and profile of bullying practices

Abstract

The present article presents the findings of a quantitative study which, beyond the general purpose of extending previous findings on the prevalence and nature of peer bullying in the secondary schools of a specific geographical area of Greece, had the aim to describe the problem from the points of view of students in their different roles as observers of bullying, students who are bullied and students who behave as bullies. A total of 502 students in the first three years of four different high schools were asked to fill in the Olweus Questionnaire. The results of the present study reveal that bullying does in fact exist in Greek secondary schools, primarily in the form of verbal aggression, social exclusion and sexual harassment. Of special interest is the variance in the frequency of bullying depending on whether the students identified themselves as bullies, victims, or observers.

Keywords::

• Bullying
• secondary schools
• bullying profiles
• gender differences

Notes

^1. Daphne Program: ‘Needs assessment and awareness raising program for bullying in schools’, Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents (APHCA); Scientific director: J, Project No: JLS/DAP/2005-1/040/YG. Coordinating country: Greece-APHCA (H. Assimopoulos, D. Giannakopoulou, T. Hatzipemos, E. Konida and E. Soumaki) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Participant countries: Cyprus (A. Paradisiotou and C. Tziogouros), Germany (H. Witteriede, University of Lueneburg) and Lithuania (L. Bulotaite and R. Povilaitis, Department of General Psychology, Vilnius University).

^2. See Bibou-Nakou, Tsiantis, Asssimopoulos, and Chatzilambou (2012) and Bibou–Nakou, Tsiantis, Asssimopoulos, Chatzilambou, and Giannakopoulou (2012) for the methodology and the findings of the qualitative study.

^3. For further details of the findings from the quantitative study, see Bibou-Nakou and Markos (2013).

^4. Students could check more than one response.

^5. Students could check more than one response.

^6. Students could check more than one response.

^7. The students filled in the questionnaire on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 =  ‘never’, 2 =  ‘two–three times’, 3 =  ‘two–three times per month’, 4 =  ‘once a week’ and 5 =  ‘several times a week’).