Abstract

This study is a 4-fold interdisciplinary work on bullying in school (so called 'wangta' in Korean) the recent social problem. First, The sociological survey on elementary, junior, and senior high school students showed that the ratio of the victims of group bullying in classroom was 9.7 %, the ratio of the bullies 13.7%. The educational survey about the second junior high school students showed that the ratio of the victims of more mild group bullying experience(i.e., humiliation & insult) was relatively high(13.6%), while the ratio for more severe bullying experience(i.e., violence & assault) much lower(3.4%). The bullies were found to be significantly lower than the controls in the level of ego-identity, social support, and general school adaptation. Among the bullies and victims, the higher in the level of ego-identity and social support, the better in the level of general school adaptation. Thirdly, the study focusing on the psychological viriablee classified the victim, the bully, and the control group on the results of bully-victim experience scales and compared on the scores of several psychological scales. The bully was found to be more extroverted than the victim Both the bully and the victim were described to be high on the level of anger, more negative on the perception of the self, lower than the controls in self-control. These results suggest their immaturity. Finally, the psychiatric case study investigated the first admission documents of 67 child adolescent patients. The ratio classified as the bullied victim was 42 %. The victims were 10.45 years old on the mean, showed the trend of IQ being low, although statistically insignificant.