The degree of bullying among students in the higher elementary education stage from the point of view of principals, teachers and counselors of Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate public schools and their strategies in dealing with them

Abstract

This study aims to examine the phenomenon of bullying among students of the upper primary stage, from the perspective of principals, teachers and counselors of governmental schools, according to the following variables: sex, job title, years of experience and academic qualification, and it also aims to examine the strategies used in dealing with bullies. The descriptive approach was used on a sample of (348) individuals, (20) of them are principals, (320) of them are teachers, and (20) of them are school counselors during the academic year (2018/2019); they were selected in an accessible manner. The study results indicated that the total degree of bullying was moderate in the percentage of (65.6%), and the results also showed that there are no statistically significant differences in the level of bullying to be attributed to the sex variable from the perspective of the sample population. The study results revealed that there are statistically significant differences of the degree of bullying among students from the perspective of sample population, to be attributed to the variable of academic qualification, in favor of Bachelor’s degree, and variable of years of experience, in favor of 5 years-less than 10 years, as well as the variable of job title, in favor of teacher. The results indicated that the degrees resulted from the strategies of dealing with bullying ranged between (2.40-1.94), and the prevention strategy ranked first, whereas punishment ranked the last. The results showed that there are statistically significant differences to be attributed to the sex variable in the prevention strategy and the consolidation strategy, in favor of males, and that there are no differences with regards to the rest of strategies. The results also indicated that there are statistically significant differences to be attributed to the academic qualification variable with regards to the prevention strategy and confirmation system strategy, in favor of Bachelor and Master degrees and higher).The results also indicated that there are no statistically significant differences to be attributed to the variable of years of experience with regards to the strategies. Finally, the results revealed that there are statistically significant differences to be attributed to the job title variable with regards to the consolidation strategy, in favor of the counselor; whereas they indicated that there are no statistically significant differences to be attributed to the job title variable with regards to the rest of strategies. The researcher recommended to hold training workshops for dealing with bullies, with the participation of several schools for exchange of experiences between them.