Studying Nature and Prevalence of Bullying in Zanjan's Rural Secondary Schools

Bullying is a worldwide problem in most schools that can cause physical and psychological impairment on both the bully and the victim. The purpose of this study is to examine the scope of this behavior in zanjan’s secondary school.Using available sampling method, 132 secondary students (93 Boys and 39 girls) were drown from 4 Zanjan ‘ssecondary schools. All participants were asked to answer individually to the Persian translation of The Bullying Questionnaire (Elena Buccoliere & Marello Darbo, 1991).the result of this study indicated that 80% of students believe in the existence of bullying in schools. Although 40.9% of them have witnessed such a behavior, 33.3% were victims and 9.8% were bullies themselves and finally 16% experienced combination of these cases. The results that 57% of bullying are done verbally, 40% physically and 2.56% is of social kind. The study showed that around 57% of the students support the bully when witnessing these situation(for example by laughing, making fun of the victims and frightening them) and only less than 29% respond to the situation by showing no support for the bully (for example by supporting the victims). In terms of the schools staff, results indicated that in the 70% of instances the schools officials responses would intensify bullying, while only in 28.8% of the cases, the staff responses would decrease or stop bullying.considering that bullying threats students’ psychological and physical health,it is necessary and of great importance to predict and control such behavior in schools. Therefore schools should take certain policies to teach the schools’ officials to prevent and intervene in such unpleasant behavior, and also to lessen the devastating effects of these behaviors