Abstract:

This qualitative study is aimed at examining middle school principals’ opinions on the factors associated with bullying in their schools, the strategies that principals take to tackle bullying in their schools, and the issues that they are faced while dealing with bullying their schools. The study group was consisted of 20 voluntary middle school principals from four central districts of Mersin. The data was collected through a semi-structured interview guide developed by the researchers through the related literature review, the expert opinions, and also a pilot study. Content analysis was used to determine certain codes, categories and themes within the qualitative data. After the data was reduced into major analytical categories, four main categories including a number of categories and sub-categories were emerged, namely prevalent types of bullying, factors associated with bullying, strategies that principals take to tackle bullying in their schools, and the issues that they are faced while dealing with it in schools. The results were discussed considering related literature.

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