Prevalence and Patterns of Bullying and Victimization among Secondary School Students in Pakistan

Abstract

The present study is a cross-sectional survey research, investigated the prevalence of bullying among students from secondary schools in Pakistan. Multistage sampling technique was used select the sample of 699 students from public and private schools of the Gujrat, Sarai Alamgir and Kharian. The translated version of Illinois bullying Scale (IBS: Atta & Shujja, 2011) was used to assess the prevalence of bullying. Results were categorized into five level: none, mild, moderate, moderate to severe and severe category. The majority of the participants fell into the moderate category of victim, bullying and fighting behavior.  Results of independent sample t-test indicated that boys were considerably engaged in bullying than girls and there was no significant difference was recorded in terms of their institutes.  These findings highlight the need for awareness, preventive strategies, and school-based policies to promote students’ mental health and well-being. The results are discussed in the light of the findings of the current study with reference to Pakistani culture and previous empirical evidence.