Browsing by Author "Tiinus, Satu"

We are surrounded by conversations about school bullying and its consequences. School bullying as a never ending problem concerns many pupils, and being victimized affects negatively individual’s holistic well-being. A lot of studies have been carried out about immediate and short-term effects of bullying compared to long-term effects. Hereby, the research question focuses on the association between school bullying and victim’s mental disorders in adulthood. To investigate school bullying and its consequences gives important information to people at school, mental health workers and everyone who has been involved in bullying, in one way or another. Therefore, studying school bullying and its consequences is socially remarkable. It is also significant that bullying is at least indirectly discussed in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, the Basic Education Act defines a safe learning environment and the National core curriculum of basic education (2014) instructs to plan ahead how to protect children from school bullying. The examination of the phenomenon of bullying and mental health was based on literature. The definition, forms and reasons as well as roles regarding bullying were introduced. As for mental health, its definition, protective and risk factors and a carefully selected group of mental disorders essential to this text were discussed. The association between school bullying and the victim’s mental disorders in adulthood was based on seven researches. The findings of the earlier studies were discussed in the light of theoretical literature. This thesis shows that school bullying and victim’s mental disorders interrelate with each other. The association was found especially between school bullying and anxiety disorders but the association between school bullying and depression was less clear. However, it is obvious that bullying at school impairs victim’s mental health which can be seen as a societal problem. Therefore, it would be very important to study effective ways of preventing school bullying, and thus cut down school bullying significantly and assure every child´s right to a carefree and safe schoolgoing.