Bullying: how university students experience bullying in their classrooms

Abstract

The current qualitative study aims to study bullying experiences among university students. The researchers interviewed six university students. Following a conceptual framework from Olweus [1] and Muluk et al. [2], the researchers transcribe the interviews and code the data following thematic analysis. Three themes emerged; I am not a rotten dog, I am not a joker, and I don’t understand why teachers bully me. The result shows that bullying has remained in higher education. All participants revealed that they experience bullying, especially in the classroom. Social/emotional bullying has become the most frequent type of bullying, and it has the power to disrupt the students' motivation to learn in the classroom. The study implies that the teacher's classroom management can play a critical role in decreasing the number of bullying. Therefore, the teachers must play a teaching role and a consultant for the students to listen to the students toward bullying.