Background/Purpose
The psychological ramifications for students involved in bullying and victimization behaviors cannot be ignored (Swearer et al., 2001; Brunstein Klomek et al., 2007), and bullying prevention in schools has become a public health concern (Spriggs et al., 2007). The purpose of this investigation was to use Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979) to examine the perceptions of middle school students about bullying in physical education and the support they receive from others.
Method
After obtaining institutional review board approval and informed consent, 24 sixth grade students and 4 physical education teachers were invited to participate in the investigation. The researcher formally and informally interviewed participants about their perceptions of support from physical education teachers, parents and peers in relation to bullying in physical education.
Analysis/Results
Interview transcriptions were analyzed using open and axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Member checks, peer debriefing, and negative case searches were also employed. Results indicate that students perceive a lack of support pertaining to bullying in physical education. Specifically, students reported that physical education teachers enable certain bullying behaviors and fail to create meaningful class rules. Students also perceive that the majority of their peers antagonize or ignore bullying events and that parents provide mixed information with regard to bullying in physical education.
Conclusions
Overall, many students do not perceive an effective support system exists for preventing bullying in physical education. More research exploring the effectiveness of teacher, parent and peer support systems pertaining to bullying in physical education is warranted.