AN AETIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE INCIDENCE OF BULLYING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RURAL AREAS OF EDO STATE

Recently, there has been an upsurge in peer victimization sometimes leading to bodily harm amongst secondary school student particularly in the rural areas. This study therefore sort to examine the causes and social consequences of bullying in rural secondary schools in Edo State. The dominance theory was adopted as the theoretical foundation of the study. The study employed the cross-sectional research design while a self-constructed semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 600 hundred participants from two rural secondary schools in Edo State. The frequency distribution and simple percentage were used to analyze the data collected. The study found that bullying exist in rural secondary schools and is caused by peer influenced, societal factors, biological factors and family influence on child development. It also discovered that bullying leads to depression, poor academic performances, psychological and physical scars. The study therefore recommend that parents and school councilors should enlighten their wards and students on the ills of bullying.