Bullying in School Environment: the Causal Factor of Academic Underachievement among Gifted Students in Ibadan

Abstract

There is a potential relationship among bullying, School environment, Social environment and academic underachievement among some gifted and talented students. Bullying can occur in school environment as well as social environment. Bullying can be mediated by several individual and sociological factors which could be differentially experienced by students with intellectual gifts. The degree to which intellectual environment of schools, operating through bullying, may diminish learning thus influencing manifestations of giftedness and artistic talent. Some students especially those that comes from strict authoritative parenting background are often tender minded and possess low self esteem thus making them easily subjective to bullying from more aggressive peers. However, some gifted and talented students could display social deficits or take little interest in the school’s social life making them social targets for bullying. This paper therefore studied bullying in academic and social environment as predictors of academic under achievement among gifted and talented students in some secondary schools in Ibadan. It could be concluded that rates of bullying will predict aspects of perceived quality of school life among students identified as intellectually gifted, or who otherwise demonstrate high levels of creativity and unusual talents. It could be recommended that teachers should display empathy in their relationship with their gifted students. School authority should also maintain a friendly environment for the gifted and talented students.