Domestic Violence as a Risk Ractor of Bullying

Povzetek

Bullying is a phenomenon which exists in every school. Available research on the scale of bullying in Slovenia shows that approximately 20% of children get bullied, while about 9% of children are violent toward peers themselves. Risk factors of bullying on individual and societal levels are numerous, the latter including domestic violence, and studies show a correlation between experience of domestic violence and violent behaviour toward peers. This link was also demonstrated in our previous study which included 271 pupils from 6th to 9th grade. Three questionnaires were utilized: 1) the Scale of aggression for students (AG-UD), 2) the Family scale, and 3) the Bullying in school scale (LMNS). The results confirm that pupils who experience domestic violence are more likely to report destroying things, making threats, disseminating rumours about others online, report purposefully destroying friendships among peers, hitting or kicking peers, and forcing peers into doing something against their will, than are their peers. Results also indicate that the more family members of pupils understood each other and spent time together, the less aggressive behaviour was reported by them. This underlines the fact that before designing programs to deal with bullying, we must first understand how school and family life together form the identity of the bully.