Bullying as an object of statistical research

Abstract

The article discusses approaches to the definition of the “bullying” concept. Some peculiarities of interpretation of bullying have been established. It is often correlated with socialisation, deviant behaviour and health protection of the younger generations. In the course of examining the history of the given phenomenon as an object of scientific research, it was revealed that according to the first definition proposed in 1993 by the Norwegian psychologist D. Olweus, bullying is deliberate, systematically repeated aggressive behavior that includes inequality of social power or physical strength. Later, there was a division into bullying and mobbing. In the first case, it is about school violence against children, in the second – violence against the adult population. Consideration of bullying as an object of statistical research has determined that at present, bullying statistics are actually at an early stage of development, not allowing to assess such a specific object of research comprehensively, thoroughly and adequately. The paper proposes the concept development for a system of indicators of bullying statistics, identification and justification of its key sections and consistent filling of the latter with indicators that correspond to certain principles (openness, accessibility, etc.). In conclusion, it is extremely important to note that bullying is inadequate, immoral and, in fact, asocial attempts of personal self-affirmation, which bring the phenomenon in question to the level of extremely negative ones that arose historically and continues to exist and actively develop in the school environment. All in all, it requires further study and elaboration.

Keywords

• bullying
• school bullying
• deviant behaviour
• aggressive behaviour
• social phenomenon
• object of observation
• system of statistical indicators