Pupils’ attitude towards school life depending on peer preferences

Abstract

The experience of peer rejection in a classroom in which pupils spend a large part of their time is accompanied by a sense of social pain and can have a profound effect on self-perception and attitude towards the school environment. This attitude is subsequently reflected in the pupil's behavior at school and his / her school success. The aim of the research was to identify differences in attitudes towards school life among accepted and rejected pupils. For this purpose, a sociometric nomination method and a questionnaire of pupils' attitudes to school life were used. 1625 pupils (aged 11-15) from 20 schools were involved in the research. The results showed that the attitudes of accepted and rejected pupils do not differ significantly. Accepted and rejected students express a rather negative attitudes towards school life in the area of interpersonal attitudes. A negative finding is the fact that more than half of the pupils feel lonely at school, suffer misery, distrust the teacher if there is a problem, and the school is not a place where they like to learn and chat with their classmates. In the case of loneliness, admitted pupils show surprisingly higher intensity than rejected pupils. Given that the findings of the research do not provide a very favorable picture of school life, it is appropriate to focus on working with the class and strengthening collective trust in the school.