In the master's thesis, we examine psychological bullying from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. In the theoretical part of the thesis, we discuss various definitions and theoretical frameworks for understanding psychological bullying, as well as different types and forms of it. We found that this form of bullying is often assumed to be less harmful because it lacks visible consequences, and participants are less likely to intervene. Furthermore, we present the prevalence of bullying, where we find that the most common form of psychological bullying is verbal violence. We also focus on the roles that students take on in violence – perpetrators, victims and bystanders – and their influence on development of violence itself. We examine the consequences experienced by students and the role of school in relation to bullying.
In the empirical part of the master's thesis, we present the results of a study that aimed to understand how students define, perceive, and experience psychological bullying, what roles they take on, and their response to its occurrence. We also examined differences between boys and girls and between students attending different grades/classes in the occurrence of this form of violence as well as motives for perpetrating psychological bullying and reasons for not intervening. We were also interested in the extent to which teachers are aware of the concept of psychological bullying, how often they perceive it and where, what roles the believe students take on, what motives they have for perpetrating violence, how they respond to it, what roles the believe are taken on in response to the occurrence of psychological bullying. The findings of the study show that surveyed students recognize only some forms of psychological bullying, they rarely recognize relational psychological violence, although it is supposed to occour frequently.
Students most commonly experience verbal psychological violence, with different forms of psychological bullying (grimases, curses and rude gestures) experienced at varying frequencies based on gender and grade. Girls are more often victims of relational psychological violence, and they also more frequently notice this form of violence. The most common motive for students perpetrating psychological bullying is the desire for popularity, with fear also being frequently mentioned. Acchording to students' opinions, psychological bullying most commonly occurs in the classroom, in the school hallways, and on external school grounds. According to the research results, studets believe that their teachers often respond to psychological bullying and actively deal with it. However, both students and teachers are said to respond to violence and mostly attempt to terminate it.
Psychological bullying is a poorly researched topic. This master's thesis can contribute to better understanding some aspects of psychological bullying, but there are still many areas that would benefit from further research from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives: particulary, a deeper exploration and acquisition of more data on the awareness and understanding of this issue by teachers. Additionally, including younger students and schools from different environments in the research would be beneficial. Ultimately, it would be advisable to educate students more about the topic od psychological bullying in the future.
|
