Bullying and Perceived School Climate: Victims' and Bullies' Perspective

IntroductionPeer bullying (PB) is a problem present in schools all around the world and met by students and teachers on daily basis. Research shows that PB has a negative impact on the physical and mental health of students (Chen, Liu, & Cheng, 2012; Pecjak, 2014), thus, researchers are trying to understand the nature of PB and minimize its negative impact on students through prevention and intervention.From the systemic theories' (e.g., Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, 1979) point of view, school has an important role in these aspirations, because school policy and existing prevention and intervention programs regarding PB are derived from "school philosophy" (Sullivan, 2011), which could also be termed school culture/climate. Therefore, one of the aims of our study was to determine which sociodemographic and school climate factors predict the roles of chronic victims and bullies.School climate is a complex, multidimensional construct. It refers to the quality and character of social interactions at school and is defined by the norms, values, rules, organizational structures and relationship patterns unique to each school (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009). Positive school climate may be a protective factor for different risk behaviors, and for students' aggression towards their peers (Cook, Williams, Guerra, Kim, & Sadek, 2010; Hong & Espelage, 2012). The school climate in PB refers to social interactions between students participating in PB - bullies, victims and non-involved students, and to interactions between teachers and these students. There are certain values and norms in the background of these social interactions, which are advocated by schools. There are also sets of rules regarding students' behavior towards peers, and teachers' responses to PB occurrence, which are stated (or not) by the school.School climate research includes students' perceptions of their peer's behavior towards them and their perceptions of how much teachers (and other school staff) care about them and treat them fairly (Hoy, Smith, & Sweetland, 2002). The schools where PB is tolerated and ignored, where a clear set of rules of behavior is not in place and where the rules are not carried out, are dysfunctional schools (Sullivan, 2011). These schools are unsafe and the only rule is survival of the fittest. On the other side, there are safe schools (Sullivan, 2011) with the philosophy that school is a safe place for students and teachers, where rules of mutual respect are enforced and fair play in mutual relations is present.Two elements have to be present for an optimal school climate: structure and support (Gregory & Cornell, 2009). The authors consider schools with clear structure and support as schools with authoritative (school) discipline. The school structure is the degree to which schools consistently and fairly enforce rules - also in cases of PB. Research shows that students' perceptions of rules as clear and fair are consistently linked to better behavior and to less victimization (Gottfredson, Gottfredson, Payne, & Gottfredson, 2005). A supportive school climate includes teachers caring for students and supporting them. Two important elements of this climate are the teachers' positive expectations towards students and their feelings of responsibility for students and for what goes on in the school (Austin & Duerr, 2005; Gregory & Cornell, 2009). Adolescents' perceptions of teachers as caring and supportive have been linked to higher academic adjustment (Gregory, Cornell, Fan, Sheras, Shih, & Huang, 2010) and social adjustment by PB - they were more likely to seek help (Wilson & Deane, 2001), less likely to experience re-victimization (Smith, Talamelli, & Cowie, 2004) and had higher commitment to school (Hong & Espelage, 2012). Research ProblemThe aim of our study was to investigate individual elements of school climate in PB (prevalence of teasing and bullying, aggressive attitudes, willingness to seek help, supportive climate and school rules, commitment to school) from the perspective of different groups of bullies and victims. …