Bullying at School: Analyzing Peer Victimization Faced by Students with Special Needs

Bullying is defined as a deliberate and ongoing aggression whose goal is to over-power the victims. The purpose of the present study is to determine the extent of bullying among students with special needs in Pakistan and to recognize factors with reference to the gender of the targets, type of disability, class, age, and geographical area. Self-administered structured questionnaires were administered to 130 students with special needs from Punjab's public sector special schools. Peer bullying and victimization were measured by the Olweus Bullying/Victim Questionnaire (1996) in the Urdu language, translated by Khawar and Malik (2018). The result discloses important information about how often bullying occurs, the type of bullying, and the context in which it happens in schools for special education. Key findings reveal that gender influences bully profiles, with boys being on the receiving end more than girls. In addition, the findings provide evidence that the visibility of a disability leads to increased rates of bullying. However, age does not impact victimization. Bullying rates do not, in fact, decrease with age, and this study found that factors such as the type of disability and school environment have a much larger influence. This study, therefore, calls for more emphasis on combating bullying in special education settings. Of particular importance, its results contribute significant information for designing policies and interventions that can address the situation of disabled children. The research advances knowledge about peer victimization and sets out the different circumstances that such students encounter, helping to reduce the number of cases of excluding and/or threatening environments in learning institutions.