An analysis of bullying in children's books

It is seen that children encounter bullying in the period when they interact with their environment and try to find a place for themselves as a member of society. In recent years, bullying has been encountered in different forms, especially in school environments. Books are tools that can provide children with information about bullying and raise awareness. It is possible for children to develop attitudes and behaviours towards bullying as a result of emulating characters and being fictionally influenced. In this context, children's books with bullying as a theme were analysed. In this study, children's books for different age groups were selected and the ways of handling bullying and solution suggestions were discussed. By identifying the frequency of types of bullying in the books, themes, concepts and styles of expression related to attitudes and behaviours towards bullying and suggestions for solutions were identified and content analysis was carried out. It was determined that verbal bullying was the most common type of bullying, and cyber and sexual bullying were the least common types of bullying in 14 books analysed. When we look at the reactions to bullying, the most common reactions are hiding the fact that they are bullied, trying to comfort themselves by bullying someone else and responding to bullying with kindness. While the need to take precautions against bullying and conflict situations was emphasised the most, no solution suggestions were found in four books.