Exploring the Effects of School-ground Design upon Students' Bullying in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

There have been acknowledgments of the potential impact of the physical setting on how children behave in several contexts. School as an environment, where children spend most of their time throughout the year, can affect how they behave in certain situations. Bullying has been highlighted as one of the most prevailing problems occurring in schools, which predominantly takes place in school playgrounds. This study aims to identify how the school playground design attributes can influence bullying amongst school students. Towards this objective, the study adopts a qualitative approach undergoing two phases. The first phase is an analysis of the relevant literature to provide an understanding of bullying, and how it occurs in the school playground, as well as the playground design attributes that promote bullying. The second phase is an ethnographic and existential-phenomenological analysis of purpose-designed semi-structured interviews, and field observations carried out in Cairene schools to fully grasp the different bullying patterns associated with playground spaces. These interviews occurred in the spring of 2020 in 4 schools represented by school principals and teachers responsible for playground supervision. Analyses revealed that bullying occurs mostly in school playgrounds. Different themes emerged for how the school playground spaces, their design, and the absence/ presence of certain features contribute to bullying, aggression, and safety features among students. The study concluded that the following factors should be considered while designing a school playground: 1) assessing the principals’ and teachers’ understanding of bullying, 2) evaluating the playground design features, and 3) promoting more active play. The main goal of the research is to contribute to shedding the light on the relationship between school playground design, and how it exacerbates the bullying phenomenon in schools. The limitations included were being banned from any interactions between the researcher and the students and prohibited taking any footage of the playground during recess.