School Factors Related to Bullying: A Qualitative Study of Early Adolescent Students.

This article addresses the issue of bullying and analyzes a set of accounts that were collected from fourteen focus group interviews with 90 secondary school children. The aim of the research was to map out the ways in which young adolescents talk about their social relations at school in relation to home and the ways they construct bullying as a school-related issue. The findings suggest that young adolescents differ in their ability to participate in the construction of social order depending on the school/home context. Further, bullying is mainly framed as an issue of the school climate on the part of the participants. The student–teacher relationship (as a hidden curriculum), academic competition and pressure of academic achievement contribute significantly to the bullying discourse in the students’ talk.