Bullying among Ethiopian and Indian school students: A comparative study

Pages: 334-340
Damanjit Sandhu, Kirandeep Kaur and Waktole Demisew Hirpa (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

Bullying refers to repeated behaviour by one or more individuals that are intended to impose physical and psychological harm to and social isolation of one or more victims through physical, verbal, and relational aggression for an extended period of time. Involvement in bullying as a victim is associated with impaired psychological well-being. Almost all studies of school bullying agree that it is a widespread problem; however, there are variations in reporting the magnitude. In line with this, the objective of the current study is to estimate the prevalence rate of bullying victimization and to investigate the psychological well-being correlates of bullying victimization among elementary school students of Ethiopia and India. A total of 2,377 (1,156 male & 1,221 female) students aged between 11 to 18 years from India (n=1568; 428 Males & 496 Females ) and Ethiopia (n=809; 406 Males & 403 Females) were sampled from a total of 13 schools (5 Indian schools & 8 Ethiopian schools) using multistage and random sampling techniques. Data were collected using: 1) The Revised Olweus Bully/Victimization Questionnaire; and 2) Friedman Well-being Scale. It is found that 37.6% of the participants in Ethiopia were bully victimized against 39.9% in India. Though slightly higher proportions of male pupils were bully victimized in Ethiopia, significantly higher proportions of female pupils were bully victimized in India. Strong and significant negative correlations were found between bullying victimization and psychological well-being for both the countries. It can be concluded from the findings of the study that bullying victimization is prevalent in both Ethiopian and Indian schools and is negatively associated with psychological well-being of pupils. The results of the study are discussed in terms of their implications for school practice and future research directions.