Bullying from the perspective of multigrade classroom teachers

Multigrade classroom teachers' opinions about bullying occurring in their classrooms are investigated in the current study. Accordingly, teachers' definitions of bullying, types of bullying they witness, the reasons behind bullying, ways to cope with bullying, effects of bullying, and possible precautions against bullying were examined in the study. The current study has a case study research design among the qualitative research types. The data of the study was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with participants. The sample of the study is consists of 25 classroom teachers having multigrade classroom teaching experience from Çankırı city center and its districts. Results of the analysis indicated that bullies are generally older and stronger students, and this arises from the context of the multigrade classroom where different grades are educated together. Additionally, it was detected that the most common bullying types in the multigrade classroom are physical and verbal bullying; the most essential way to cope with bullying is providing school-family cooperation and dealing with students more closely; bullying negatively affects bullies, victims and witnesses in many aspects. Evaluation of the results revealed that courses about multigrade classrooms should be included in the primary teacher education program. In addition, it was suggested that raising awareness of parents, school administrators, teachers and students on bullying can be effective to reduce bullying in rural areas where multigrade classroom practices are widespread.