Browsing by Author "Harjola, Aava"

The purpose of this research is to find out the perceptions of parents about the selection of a bully victim i.e. why some children get bullied in a group of children, and some do not. It must be clarified, that the purpose of the research is not to find any reason for the justification of bullying, but to find information on how and on what account a bully chooses its victim. Earlier theories about bullying insist that the reasons behind bullying can be traced to the bully, not the victim. Even so, it must be brought to light that victims of bullying exist, and that they often resemble each other in some way or another. The main goal of this research is to find these commonalities, this time from the point of view of the parents. It will be interesting to see if these common features are something we can interfere with, in order to prevent being selected as a victim of bullying. The point of view of the parents is crucially important to this research, because attitudes towards bullying and victims of bullying, can be easily forwarded from parents to their children and so on into their peer relationships, without the parents intending to do so. In fact, one goal of the research was to see whether there could be seen a negative approach towards the victims of bullying in the answers of the parents, which could be forwarded to the children through their upbringing. It was as important to find out the parents opinions on the interference of bullying, and how it could be done. The research material was gathered during December 2015 with an online questionnaire. The questionnaire gained 183 answers from the parents of under school aged children, living in Helsinki. Phenomenography was used as the research method. The results of the research could be divided into three types of groups. Based on the results the selection of a victim of bullying happens coincidentally and for any reason. There are ways in which parents can interfere with the selection, but these ways are seen as dubious. Based on the results, the risk of getting bullied is twice as high with a child whose parents have been bullied, compared to a child whose parents have not been bullied.