School Bullying from Multiple Perspectives: A Qualitative Study

Muna Shaath^a, Hiba Sleem^b, Yaman Slaieh^c, Hiba Ishtayah^d, Abdel-Ghani Saifi^e, Odah Hamayil^f

^aDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, An-Najah University, Nablus, Palestine

The study aim to identify the reality of school bullying from the perspective of the victims, bullies, educators, and workers in one of the private schools at Nablus city. The researchers employed the qualitative research method that was based on face-to-face interviews. Moreover, the age range of the selected sample was between 13-16 years old. The study’s findings revealed the forms of bullying at the school, its causes, and the school policy to tackle it. Most of the results were characterized by having a problematic definition of "bullying." Moreover, the school was confused about dealing with bullying in all its forms, and there was a clear strategy to address the problem. The study recommend the necessity of school-based bullying prevention and treatment programs designed to reduce the bullying phenomenon at schools.

Este estudio tiene por objeto determinar la realidad del acoso escolar desde la perspectiva de las víctimas, los acosadores, los educadores y los trabajadores de una de las escuelas privadas de la ciudad de Naplusa. Los investigadores emplearon el método de investigación cualitativa basado en entrevistas cara a cara. Además, el rango de edad de la muestra seleccionada estaba entre 13-16 años. Los resultados del estudio revelaron las formas de intimidación en la escuela, sus causas y la política escolar para enfrentarla. La mayoría de los resultados se caracterizaron por tener una definición problemática de "bullying". Además, puso de manifiesto la confusión del centro escolar al tratar con el bullying en todas sus formas: no había una estrategia clara para abordar el problema. El estudio recomienda la necesidad de tener programas de prevención y tratamiento del acoso escolar diseñados para reducir el fenómeno del bullying en las escuelas.

Palabras clave:
Presión de los compañeros
Acoso escolar
Investigación cualitativa
Víctimas

The pervasiveness of peer victimization or bullying among students is well documented, and there has been an increase in incidents of violence. School bullying is repetitive and deliberate aggression carried out by a bully against a victim verbally, physically, and emotionally (UNESCO, 2011). Furthermore, school bullying is a renewed old phenomenon associated with the student’s negative behavior against others and oneself. Olweus studied school bullying in 1993, and he tried to detect this negative phenomenon and explain its exacerbation and treatment at Norwegian schools.

Bullying as behavior is based on the abuse from the bullies against their peers, who are being bullied repetitively, whether verbal or non-verbal, intend to annoy, extort, and deal aggressively with others (Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2011; Burmaster, 2002). Thus, school bullying is a negative behavior that hinders the learning process and leads to the suffering of the victims. In addition, it limits their participation in school activities and leads to their dropping out (Gentry et al., 2000). This hinders the school from being the educational institution responsible for providing students with a safer place and contributing to their well-being.

The prevalence of violence, suicide attempts, and different types of recurrent offenses among students have become painful daily events. Bullying threat ends the security of the individual, family, school, and the community (Kumpulainen et al., 1998; Quiroz et al., 2006; Benetiz & Justicia, 2006). Educational literature on the study of bullying indicates that half of the students in different stages of schooling, particularly adolescents, have been subjected to various types of violence, harassment, and threats (Benetiz & Justicia, 2006; Abu-Diyar, 2011).

Najam & Kashif’s (2018) study in Pakistan concluded that peer bullying significantly impacts students’ behavioral engagement. Due to bullying in the classroom, the students could not fully concentrate on their work activities, did not participate in class participation, and did not follow the teacher’s instructions which ultimately disconnected the students from their studies. On the other hand, the findings also showed a significant difference in public and private university students’ behavioral engagement. Moreover, comparatively the average behavioral engagement in public students was higher than the private university students.

In a study conducted by Georgiou (2008) at Illinois in the United States, it was revealed that more than 50% of the students between 8th and 10th grade had experienced different forms of school bullying. In addition, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development disclosed that more than one million students were involved in bullying, whether they were victims or bullies (Hillsberg & Spak, 2006).

The difficulty of having a specific definition for bullying and whether a specific behavior is considered bullying or not, especially among friends, was indicated in a qualitative study conducted by Mishna (2004) on bullying from the perspective of victims and educators, and parents in Canada.

More studies were conducted on bullying because of its adverse effects on the learning and behaviors of students at schools (Kumpulainen et al., 1998; Quiroz et al., 2006; Benetiz & Justicia, 2006). School bullying has many forms: verbal, physical, psychological, cyber, and social. It indicates aggression against students, affecting their daily lives and academic and professional progress (Black & Jackson, 2007; UNESCO, 2011). As a result, school bullying affects the students’ community and inflicts severe damage on their well-being (Gentry et al., 2000; Abu-Diyar, 2012).

The negative behaviors involved in bullying are often identified as direct, including overtly aggressive behaviors such as physical acts (e.g., pushing, punching) and verbal acts (e.g., insults, teasing), or indirect, which includes relationally aggressive acts designed to damage social relationships (e.g., spreading rumors, social exclusion). Like traditional bullying, most cyberbullying requires an intentional act committed by an individual or group to cause harm or distress to another individual or group but done through electronic communication technologies (Horner et al., 2015).

This study sheds light on bullying in Palestinian schools. It tackles an issue that has not been thoroughly addressed. Moreover, Palestinian students have been experiencing social, economic, and psychological conditions, which have affected their behaviors. Based on the vast experience of the researchers in the field of educational work, school bullying destabilizes the educational process and might threaten the building of the whole society. The researchers have conducted a study of school bullying at one of Nablus schools. The city of Nablus was chosen as the place for carrying out the study since few studies have addressed the subject of bullying in Nablus.

On the other hand, Nablus city has a mixture of the population from the city, the village, and the refugee camps. Therefore, the target school has been selected based on varied social and economic backgrounds as the school’s geographical location is a destination for many students from the city, rural areas, and refugee camps. Furthermore, the study sample includes students from grades eight to ten; this is a critical age since it is the stage of self-discovery and self-building for the students. Thus, the researchers considered this school as the suitable target for the study to monitor the phenomenon of bullying at the Palestinian schools and find out its causes.

This paper is structured by first presenting an analysis of the previous work on the effects and characteristics of bullying in schools and followed by presenting the methodology and the qualitative results of the viewpoints of the students and school administrators on the forms and causes of bullying in addition to their opinions on the school policies for tackling this practice. The study ends by representing the limitations, conclusion, and recommendations of the study.

Bullying as a practice has been known since ancient times and since human existence on this earth. However, the increasing prevalence and the transformation of bullying into problematic behavior has made this phenomenon dangerous. This has attracted researchers and those interested in education and psychology due to the adverse effects of bullying, whether on individuals or communities in the various psychological, social, emotional, and academic fields.

The term "bullying" has been associated with schools because of its repetitive occurrence and dangerous repercussions. Some schools have an inadequate learning environment, recreational facilities, overcrowded classrooms, lack of counselors, limited schoolyards, and traditional teaching methods. The Norwegian psychologist, Olweus has had a head start on the topic of bullying. He is the founding father of the school bullying research after the suicide of three students who were victims of bullying. According to Olweus (1993), school bullying is a violent personal behavior based on the principle of initiation rather than reaction.

School bullying is a form of unbalanced, aggressive behavior that occurs repetitively in peer relationships in school environments. It is also based on control, domination, and oppression between two parties; one is the aggressor, and the other is the victim of bullying (Abu Sahloul et al., 2018). Al-Shatibi (2014) states that bullying is often intended to dominate and force others to do something against their will. Moreover, it can be carried out by one or several individuals against an individual or a group. According to Ismail’s (2010) study, there is a positive correlation between the victims of school bullying, anxiety, low self-esteem, low psychological security, and psychological isolation.

Al-Raqqad et al. (2017) conducted a study in Jordan to investigate school bullying’s impact on students’ academic achievement from teachers’ perspective. The study found that school bullying exists in all schools, regardless of if it is governmental or private. The study also concluded that school bullying affects student’s academic achievement, either the victims or the bullies.

Bullying is not limited to a certain age or period. Bullying may occur even among kindergarten children, and cases may increase if the family and the school do not detect them. Thus, the absence of detection mechanisms will negatively affect the victimized children who will suffer from fear, tension, isolation, and unwillingness to go to school for no apparent reason. On the other hand, special needs children are more likely to be bullied than their peers (Cappadocia et al., 2012).

In short, Al-Shatibi (2014) stated that Bullying has the following characteristics:

2. It is repetitive; it is often aimed at harming the same victim several times.

3. It usually indicates an imbalance of power. In other words, the bully chooses the less powerful victim.

School bullying in all its forms, whether physical, verbal, psychological, social, and cyber, is a problem that has adverse effects on the bully, the victim of bullying, and the whole school environment. School bullying can affect security, stability, and the school’s social structure, and it harms students at many levels (Khoj, 2012).

There are many psychological impacts the victimized students suffer from, such as rejection, fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Furthermore, they may withdraw from participation in school activities, drop out of school to avoid the bullies, and have low educational attainment. It is worth mentioning that both the aggressor and the victim might have low educational attainment (Abdul Rahim, 2017).

Oliveira et al. (2018) in Brazil found that bullying harms the performance in mathematics and that social-emotional skills can help students deal with bullying. The results indicate that anti-bullying programs should take into account the social and emotional wellbeing of the students.

School bullying has many forms, whether verbal, physical, sexual, psychological, social, or cyber. Cyberbullying has recently spread, and its manifestations have increased due to the development of the digital life in which people live today. It can happen through social media such as Facebook. Moreover, it can appear through text messages via mobile or e-mail (Kowalski & Limber, 2007).

Cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying: It can be more challenging to recognize that what children and teenagers do online is not always readily apparent to parents and teachers. Bullying conducted via text or online medium can more easily go unnoticed. More relentless, Cyberbullying does not end at school and can follow a child home. More enduring, Cyberbullying leaves an impact that can follow both the bully and the victim for years (Kowalski & Limber, 2013).

Researchers also have presented different views about the relationship between traditional bullying and cyberbullying. Some have suggested that cyberbullying is merely a continuation of traditional bullying executed through new means. Others have noted that cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying in some essential aspects (e.g., potential anonymity, inability to see perpetrator/victim) and suggest that, although they may share features in common, cyberbullying and traditional bullying are qualitatively different phenomena perpetrated by somewhat different groups of individuals (Kowalski & Limber, 2013).

Bevilacqua et al. (2017) conducted a study in English schools. They found that Bullying victimization and cyberbullying prevalence vary across school type and school quality, supporting the hypothesis that organizational/management factors within the school may impact students’ behavior.

There are many factors that prompt students to show bullying behaviors. The researchers have categorized them as the following: (Al-Shatibi, 2014, pp. 4-5).

• Biological factors: Bullies are characterized by the physical strength that makes them superior to their victims, in addition to their genetic tendencies.

• Psychological factors: The bullies have aggressive and emotional tendencies and their sense of control and strength, and they may suffer from anxiety and low self-esteem.

• Cognitive Factors: The bullies tend to mistakenly believe that others have aggressive intentions towards them, in addition to their lack of empathy with others.

• Family factors: Classified as the most dangerous factors that generate bullying behaviors such as family problems, inappropriate family upbringing, negligence, lack of communication between parents and children, insensitivity, and lack of emotions and tenderness.

• Social factors: The bullies generally have a high social and popular status among their peers, so they want to avoid their harm.

This study examines the reality of school bullying from the perspectives of the students, teachers, counselors, and principals. The study has been carried out in one of Nablus schools belonging to a charity, which makes it somewhat far from the commercial profit concept of private schools. The school encompasses students from different backgrounds such as villages, refugee camps, and Nablus’s city. This enables the study to be an important one to investigate the reality of bullying in Nablus.

A semi-structured interview was carried out with a sample of six students aged between 13-16, two teachers, a principal, a counselor, and three school administrators. The sample of the students reflected the behaviors of the bullies and the victims. Moreover, the study’s objective was explained, and the researchers sought permission from the school administration and the officials to carry out this study.

All the respondents were interviewed in a private setting to assess good and bad behavioral practices at the school, students’ responses, negative forms of bullying, its causes, and ways of confronting it from the participant’s perspective.

The participants were interviewed individually for four days. The interview time ranged from an hour to an hour and a half and took place at one of the school’s private library rooms. In addition, the interview was recorded electronically and then verified. Analysis of the texts was carried out, and then the answers were encoded and classified into topics, categories, and dimensions. The respondents’ responses were compared to identify the similarities and the differences in their answers. The questions were:

On the other hand, students were asked the following questions: How do their teachers face bullying behaviors? Does the presence or the absence of regulations at school play a role in aggravating or reducing bullying?

Some forms of bullying were vague to the teachers, the principal, and the counselor, such as psychological bullying (exclusion, rejection, and ridicule) and cyberbullying. These indirect and invisible forms did not attract their attention, and they were not considered an act of bullying since they are used to dealing with terms like “violence” and “aggression,” which are represented by beating, kicking, damaging school property and physical fights. These are the unacceptable behaviors that annoy them, and they pay much attention to undermine them.

In Table 1, the teachers and the principal agreed that bullying as a concept is a recent issue in their school. Students’ violence against each other such as kicking, beating, or verbal violence, has been perceived as one of the main types of school violence, and it is usually treated with punishment. Teachers, the principal, and the counselor recently started to consider indirect and invisible actions as a new form of bullying and the physical aspect.

Table 1. Forms of Bullying

The Sample	The Use of Violence	Physical Bullying	Exclusion and Body Language Bullying	Cyber Bullying
Students	x	x	x	x
Teachers	x	x
Principal	x	x
Counselor		x		x
Canteen Employer		x

The principal, the teachers, and the students indicated that bullying has several forms, such as verbal and physical bullying. Verbal bullying took the form of ridicule, cynicism, and name-calling. Whereas, the physical bullying, as the canteen employee explained, ranged from kicking, flinging, beating, shoving into the queue of students waiting for their turn at the school canteen, pushing in the school corridors and the physical education class, and throwing their belongings such as pens, and chalks. The older students carry out such actions against the younger ones. This result is consistent with the results of studies such as (Kumpulainen et al., 1998; Quiroz et al., 2006; Benetiz & Justicia, 2006), where the prevalence of the incidents of violence, suicide attempts, and different types of recurrent offenses among students has become painful daily events. Bullying threatens the security of the individual, family, school, and the community.

The counselor pointed out a new type of bullying, cyberbullying, that has started spreading in the school as it can be carried out easily outside its walls. However, it is one of the most dangerous forms that affect the psychological well-being of the students. Students have practiced it by spreading negative rumors and abusive images on social networking sites. One of the teachers pointed out that one of the older students has posted an abusive post on Facebook that underestimates others and states the following: “if dogs meet, the lion is targeted.” The principal and the teachers agreed on the seriousness of this type of bullying, which is as difficult to pursue as the traditional one. This coincides with the results of the study of Kowalski and Limber (2007) and Horner et al. (2015), which indicates that Cyberbullying can happen through social media such as Facebook, in addition to that that most cyberbullying requires an intentional act committed by an individual or group in order to cause harm or distress to another individual or group.

There are other forms of bullying expressed by the study sample. For example, the students indicated that some of their classmates subjected them to an inferior attitude. In addition to the use of eye movements, physical gestures that suggest superiority and arrogance, as well as the exclusion and the rejection of some students from participating in the activities, especially in the school recess, on the playground, and at the physical education class.

All members of the study sample agreed on the seriousness of these practices on the students. The principal and the teachers stressed that they might lead to the student’s dropping out of school, isolation, and low academic achievement. Some of the victimized students reported that they have withdrawn from activities such as football to avoid the aggression of the bullies. Whereas other students expressed the futility of their complaint to the teacher, the counselor, and even their parents because they do not believe their words and prefer to neglect the problem rather than treat it. In brief, bullying has harmed students, even the high-achieving ones, as it has reduced their desire to interact in the various activities which comply with (Kumpulainen et al., 1998; Gentry et al., 2000; Benetiz & Justicia, 2006; Quiroz et al., 2006; Black & Jackson, 2007; UNESCO, 2011; Abu Diyar, 2012), which indicate the prevalence of the incidents of violence, suicide attempts, and different types of recurrent offenses among students have become painful daily events and can threaten the security of society.

We notice from Table 2 that the counselor, the principal, the students, and the teachers agreed that one of the main reasons for bullying is the absence of family supervision; besides, the psychological pressures that affect the students, whether at home, on the street, in the school or from their friends. The students’ constant exposure to violence and unmet needs led them to project their negative emotions through violent practices against their peers. Table 2 demonstrates that the teachers focused on the absence of parental involvement in their children’s lives. On the other hand, the canteen employee and the librarian pointed out that there is an imbalance in parental supervision and that some teachers sometimes promote some bullying practices for some students by giving them leadership roles such as the class captain or the head of a group and thus contributing to more control over their peers. These results are consistent with the results of the studies of (Bevilacqua et al., 2017; Cappadocia et al., 2012), which indicate that bullying prevalence varies across school type and school quality, supporting the hypothesis that organizational/management factors within the school may impact students’ behavior, and bullying is not limited to a certain age or period. On the other hand, more vulnerable children are more likely to be bullied than their peers.

Table 2. The Causes of Bullying

	The Absence of Family care and supervision	Psychological Pressures	School and Classroom Environment	Political Conditions
Teachers	x	x
Principal	x	x		x
Counselor	x	x		x
Students	x	x	x	x
Canteen Employee	x		x
Librarian	x		x

However, the students mentioned other reasons for bullying that are attributed to the school itself, such as long hours at the school, the classroom routine, the lack of innovative teaching methods, the existence of psychological barriers between the teacher and the student, and the absence of effective counseling programs at the school. Furthermore, the students expressed their dissatisfaction with the large numbers of students in the classes, their exhaustion in the exams, their discontent about the teaching methods, the absence of extracurricular activities at the school, and their incompatibility with their interests. In addition, there has been an emphasis on peer competition in the school that has led to more frustration, resentment, and a lack of a sense of belonging to the school.

The principal and the counselor elaborated that the political situation in Palestine casts a shadow over the students’ bullying behaviors as well. Students face daily hazards such as the difficulty to reach their schools, closures, blockades, and sometimes invasion of the students’ residential areas. Furthermore, the media plays another role in enhancing the violent practices of the students.

In Table 3, the treatment measures were limited to the counselor’s intervention by offering guidance and following up the cases. However, it seems complicated for the counselor to offer guidance to a large number of students. Teachers at the school have tried to play the role of classroom counselors, and they initiated dialogues with the students to understand their motives for bullying. However, the teachers found it challenging to act as classroom counselors due to their heavy professional burdens.

Table 3. Methods of Treatment at the School

Interviewees	Psychological Counseling at School	Parent Council	Guidance Workshops	Behavior Modification System
Teachers	x
Principal	x	x
Students	x
Counselor	x

The students pointed out that the physical provocation had decreased when the teachers monitored the queue or stood in the corridors to control the students’ entry and exit from the classes and the school. The principal and the teachers highlighted the importance of having our enforcement system of reward and punishment to address this problem with students. The principal added that he resorted to the Parents Council and to the help of a Guidance Committee to address and solve the student’s problems. At the same time, the counselor carried out individual follow-ups with the students, meetings with parents, and holding workshops in coordination with the Political Guidance Commission and the police, which complies with (Oliveira et al., 2018) study where anti-bullying programs should consider social-emotional skills.

Accordingly, we note that all the respondents agreed on the importance of having an effective counseling system for students consisting of a more significant number of counselors. Moreover, there is necessary to establish a preventive program in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the school administration, and the parents. They also focused on the role of extracurricular activities and the importance of enrolling students in drama, art, and sports to help them express their feelings in school and empathize with one another. This is consistence with (Oliveira et al., 2018).

They also suggested activating the student mediation program that depends on peer counseling to each other after a simple training to do so and opening channels of communication with families by holding regular meetings with them to hear their children’s problems and keep them updated. The principal also pointed out the importance of having more teachers in the yards and corridors to monitor any unacceptable behavior and to intervene to resolve it.

On the other hand, the students expressed the necessity of providing them with a more humane environment. For instance, teachers should use modern and innovative teaching methods to break the monotony and the indoctrination of teaching. Students’ social and emotional problems should be tackled seriously. In short, the school should be a safer place that can meet the students’ emotional needs.

The results of the study show that physical bullying is less prevalent than other types of bullying. However, the other indirect types of bullying such as verbal and cyberbullying and exclusion have increased. Many teachers have cited several threatening practices by students on social media, such as exclusion, rejection, spreading rumors, and intimidation. Cyberbullying has increased because it is practiced easily and indirectly, and it is not as visible as the other types of bullying. For example, some students noted that their classmates removed them from learning groups on social media.

The teachers, the students, the librarian, and the canteen employee all agreed that bullying increased at the recess, leisure, morning queue, canteen, and corridors. Students who were older and physically bigger were used to jumping the queue at the canteen by provoking, kicking, and shoving. Some of the students had been excluded and rejected from participating in activities like football. Moreover, the bullies tend to mock and fun the weak physical structures of their victims.

Most of the respondents (the teachers, the counselor, and the principal) agreed on the role of the family on the students’ bullying behaviors as there was a lack of good role models at home, problematic homes, family disintegration, and the lack of channels of communication between the school and the parents. These factors led students to project their feelings by controlling and bullying others. However, the principal indicated that the political situation in Palestine had had its impacts on the students’ violent behaviors; they expressed their frustrations, psychological pressures at the Israeli checkpoints, and arrests due to the occupation. As a result, the occupation has cast a shadow on the violent behaviors of the students and made it difficult for the school administration to implement extracurricular activities after school hours. Whereas the students attributed the reasons for bullying to the absence of an effective psychological system to turn to and the lack of innovative teaching methods and extracurricular activities. There has been only one counselor for (650) students in the school, which led to his inability to provide sufficient help.

Furthermore, teachers’ supervision in the recess was relatively permissive and detached. Students expressed the lack of warm relationships between them and their teachers. Moreover, they attributed the behavior of continuous bullying to the lack of a penal system and other factors such as the arrogance and social superiority of the bullies.

The teachers and the principal agreed on the importance of developing an effective counseling program within the school by holding periodic meetings and workshops to educate students about the proposed solutions to their various problems. Besides, it is essential to activate the student mediation program proposed by the Ministry of Education, which depends on helping the peers to each other to solve their problems.

The students suggested that there should be better means of communication between them and their teachers to become more welcoming and humane. Moreover, the students insisted on having an effective penal system for abusers; besides, fostering better relationships between older and younger students. On the other hand, other students suggested the importance of assigning them projects tackling bullying in subjects like religion and ethical studies.

The canteen employee added that the school administration should carry out its regulations to modify the students’ behaviors. While the counselor and the principal suggested the importance of having a preventive, therapeutic program in cooperation with the school, the Ministry of Education, and the Political Guidance Commission represented by the police to address the problems of various students within the school.

To conclude, the most common pattern in the respondents’ responses was the difficulty of defining “bullying” and calling a particular event “bullying” that may be more complex and confusing for the teachers, the counselors, and even the students. This misconception was due to the different perspectives on bullying by the bully, the bullied (the victim), and the administrators.

The study aimed to identify the reality of bullying in a private school in Nablus. The topic was relatively new to the administration and teachers and somewhat controversial. Therefore, the researcher had to conduct this study in a private school with easier access to staff and students than a public one that needs more authorization and approval procedures.

Some of the challenges faced were in discussing the act of bullying with the teachers as many did not consider this act as a severe behavior, but part of the kids playing and teasing, and thus they took that very lightly.

On the other hand, the only counselor in the school was too busy addressing the problems of many students, and most of the time, the researcher had to postpone meetings. Data collection and analysis depended on the interviews conducted during the lunch break of the school and between classes which sometimes conflicted with the researcher’s classes at the university.

The study contributes to the complexity of identifying and responding to bullying in a school in Palestine. We hope that the findings of our study can be used to support teachers, headteachers, and other school staff to listen to students, examine their understanding, and involve them in the prevention of bullying. Thus, we recommend the following:

• Designing a preventive, therapeutic program that gives the students a voice and investigates their perspectives on bullying. This should be carried out in cooperation with the school, the parents, and the counselor. More programs can be designed in cooperation with the Department of Psychology at An-Najah National University and the Political Guidance Commission. In addition to holding regular workshops that raise awareness for the students and their parents throughout the academic year. There is a necessity to increase the number of counselors at the school and design a straightforward behavior modification program that educates students about their rights. On the other hand, the students should be engaged in behavior modification programs. Their consultation and participation are crucial since they are more knowledgeable than teachers about what goes on in the playground, the corridors, and the cyber world.

• The school should promote more extracurricular activities, recreational programs, and voluntary work. This will help students find a safe motivating space in their schools. Moreover, the school could establish a blog or a platform to provide assistance and guidance for them.

Furthermore, the main recommendations from the interviewees regarding the prevention of bullying are the following:

• Students and teachers suggested the importance of an effective counseling system to meet their needs and address their issues with their peers.

• A mediation program was an essential tool to be enrolled. That was suggested in particular by the staff and principal.

• Counselors and students stressed the need to integrate extracurricular activities to funnel the kid’s energy more productively and positively, which builds better relationships.

• Students also suggested having more teachers monitor the queues as they believe this would significantly decrease acts of physical provocation.

• A penal system for abusers and a zero-tolerance policy for acts of bullying was recommended by both teachers and students.

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