BULLYING AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN OSUN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Bullying among secondary school students have been seen as a common anti-social behavior in our contemporary society. This pattern of behavior has negatively affected learning environment and the psychological nature of many students. Hence, if such pattern of behavior is not checked, it would be counterproductive to the citadel of learning where character, moral and knowledge are to be the focal points moderating the drive of such environment. The paper adopted a survey research design to depict this pattern of behavior to reach a position on the effect of bullying within the learning environment. 500 questionnaires were administered with the use of a multistage sampling procedure. Equally, the use of secondary data was used to support some of the findings of the research. It was discovered that less than half of the sample size used, 33.6% experienced bullying, while 63.4% were bullied by other students. Result also revealed that boys had more direct experience with and manifestations of bullying than their female counterparts and that the most common form of bullying was emotional. Therefore, paper recommended that most schools need to do more in the area of violence management if acts such as bullying is to be eradicated or reduced to the barest minimal in the school environment.