BULLYING BEHAVIOUR AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: ANALYSIS OF PREVALENCE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES

Introduction: This study sought to investigate the prevalence of bullying as well as to identify gender differences that exist in bullying behaviour. Bullying occurs mostly among children and adolescents in several settings such as schools and on the streets. The thrust of this study is on bullying that occur in schools. Methodology: Four hundred secondary school students (mean age = 17.8, SD = 1.2) were randomly selected in four urban secondary school students in Lagos. The descriptive survey research design was employed for this study. A research question and one research hypothesis were raised and tested. The Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ) by Rigby and Slee was adopted for data collection in this study. Results: There was a high prevalence of bullying behaviour among the participants’. The result showed a significant gender differences in the prevalence of bullying behaviour (t = 3.135, df = 398, p < 0.05), the perpetration of bullying behaviour (t = .349, df = 156, p < 0.05) and in being a victims of bullying behaviour (t = 1.332, df = 171, p < 0.05). Conclusion: To prevent psychopathological tendencies among victims of bullying, educational administrators are encouraged to put mechanisms in place to check incidences of bullying behaviour before they fester and to encourage victims to report acts of bullying with perpetrators sanctioned accordingly