The attitudes and intervention strategies of school administrators and teachers about peer bullying

Essentially there are four main aims of this research; the first of which is to elaborate on the degree of awareness of participant teachers and school administrators on peer bullying behaviours in schools. The second aim is to find out how seriously the participant teachers and school administrators react to peer bullying behaviours and whether the degree of this reaction differs with various types of bullying behaviours.The third main aim is to identify the teachers and school administrators' intervention levels in bullying behaviours they witness and whether the level of these interventions vary with the type of bullying behaviour. Finally, it is aimed to set down the kind of intervention behaviours the teachers and school administrators prefer for each of the bullying types. The result of the statistical findings are as follows: a) teachers most commonly perceive physical bullying as a bullying behaviour and social bullying as the least commonly, b) teachers take physical and verbal bullying behaviours more seriously than social bullying behaviours, c) regardless of the type of behaviour most teachers will intervene d) in any type of bullying encountered, the most commonly preferred intervention strategies are "to talk to the bully about his unacceptable behaviour" and "to inform of the bully to the couselling service, schoolboard or the bully's parents" e) the least preferred strategies are "to ignore" and "to punish". It is found that a) school administrators' definitions of bullying greatly vary, b) like teachers, they emphasize physical bullying type the most, c) school administrators say that bullying may be seen anywhere in the school, d) Stating that the greatest responsibility falls upon guidance counselors and the teachers, school administrators point out the correlation between family care, family education and bullying e) the school administrators remarked that 'warning the student' and 'talking to him/her' are the methods they most commonly use.