BODY IMAGE AND SOCIAL STATUS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN BRAZILIAN INVOLVED IN BULLYING

The objective of this study was to verify the bullying involvement among scholars and to compare them in relation to the corporal image and the social status in the school environment. Took part in this study 337 children, being 184 boys and 153 girls, with average age of 12,77 years old, regularly enrolled at the last year of elementary public school in Florianópolis - BR. We used the Questionnaire for the Study of the Violence among Pears proposed by Freire et. al. (2006), a sociometric analyses based on Freire et. al. (2006), Smith, (2004), Pereira (2004), and Olweus (1994), the Stunkard Scale (1983), the Veale questionnaire (2004), and the Levandoski Scale for social status in the school environment (2009). The data analysis was made using descriptive and inferential statistics, adopting p ?0,05. We found that 28,3% of children involved with bullying, being 14,1, 4,3, and 9,8% were victims (V), aggressors/victims (AV) and aggressors (A), respectively. There is no difference among them in relation to the current and ideal self-image, but we found that more (V) and (AV) would like to be physically larger, and the (A) are more satisfied with their corporal image. It was verified that the (A) also have a higher popularity among peers in the class room. We consider that the self-image and the corporal perception, as well as, the social position interfere in the bulling action among (A) and (V)