Searching for the relationship among secondary school students? bullying behaviors and their perceptions of parental attitudes (The example of Kadiköy district, the city of İstanbul)

The purpose of this study is to search for the relationship among secondary school students? bullying behaviors and their perceptions of parental attitudes. In accordance with this purpose, types and frequency of bullying behaviors have been determined, students who get involved in bullying acts and who not were evaluated and students? perceptions of parental attitudes were found out.231 girls and 236 boys, with a total number of 467 students between 11 and 15 years of age from five different Primary Schools of Kadıköy district of Istanbul in 2009-2010 school year were the participants of this study.The participants were given Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire (Satan, 2006), Parental Attitudes Questionnaire (Yılmaz, 2000) and a questionnaire developed by the researcher to collect data about independent variables. The variability (r=.7) and reliability (Cronbach alpha: .95) of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire were done by Satan (2006). The questionnaire has four different dimensions which are physical, verbal, entertaining and emotional bullying. The Parental Attitudes Questionnaire was used by Lamborn and his friends (1991) and its? validity and reliability studies were done by Yılmaz (2000). The questionnaire has 26 items and three dimensions named as acceptance/care, psychological autonomy and authority.Findings of the study were analyzed and interpreted with SPSS 15.0 program. Frequency and percentile distribution were used to analyze the findings of the study, and One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), t Test, Kruskal Wallis-H Test were used to determine differences among groups as well. To determine the differences among groups, Post-hoc Tamhane?s T2 Test and Mann Whitney-U Test were used. Additionally, Mann Whitney-U Analysis was used in order to find whether or not the groups differ and Pearson Correlation Statistical Method was applied to find the relationship among groups.The results of Pearson Correlation Statistical Method which was used to determine a significant relationship between subscales of Parental Attitudes Questionnaire and subscales of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire have indicated a negative ralationship among acceptance/care dimension of Parental Attitudes Questionnaire and physical bullying dimension, verbal bullying dimension and entertaining bullying dimension of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire; a negative ralationship among psychological autonomy dimension of Parental Attitudes Questionnaire and physical bullying dimension, verbal bullying dimension and entertaining bullying dimension of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire; a negative ralationship among authority dimension of Parental Attitudes Questionnaire and physical bullying dimension, verbal bullying dimension and entertaining bullying dimension of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire.Generally, it?s acceptable that while the total points of dimensions of Parental Attitudes Questionnaire are rising, the total points of dimensions of Bullying Attitudes Tendency Questionnaire are decreasing statistically and significantly.As a result of this research, there is a significant relationship between the bullying tendencies of the student and the perceived parental attitudes.Key words: Bullying, Bully, Victim, Violence, Aggression, Perceived Parental Attitudes, Secondary School Education