Abstract

PURPOSE: Demographic factors such as gender, residential status, family income, father’s job, mother’s job, father’s education and mother’s education play an important role in children’s day to day lives, and especially in the disrespecting of children by their peers. The present study identifies the influence of these seven factors for the maltreatment of children through five dimensions: making fun of a child’s accent, making fun the child’s place of residence, making fun of the child’s culture, making fun of the child’s friends, and annoying a child because of his/her accent.

METHODS: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis along with path diagrams are used to extract child disrespect from the three factors and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is run to verify the above factor structure and evaluate the influence of predictors for child disrespect by peers.

FINDINGS: The significance test of p-values in the regression equation shows that gender, mother’s education, and mother’s job are the statistical predictors for the disrespecting of children at a 1% level of significance and mediate this effect through four of the five dimensions.

CONCLUSION: The education levels of mothers play a major role in ameliorating the victimization of children by peer disrespect. Girls are more likely to be victimized than boys, and a mother’s job also significantly ameliorates the peer disrespect shown to her children.

Introduction

The situation of children being disrespected by other children is extremely common in schools by peers, and at home by siblings. Bullying at school occurs when a physically or mentally stronger child repeatedly behaves disrespectfully towards a weaker one. While a major reason for bullying behavior can be insecurity born from feelings of alienation at home, many other factors lead to it too. Psychological factors like feelings of powerlessness can manifest in a child’s behavior after experiencing disrespect by peers. Often children emulate older members of their families so if they are treated in a disrespectful manner at home or are bullied by parents or siblings then they are likely to imitate such behavior at school. When a child is seen to be making fun of others, it can often be assumed that he or she receives the same treatment at home, or witnesses someone else getting abused. A child can be made to feel scared and powerless from seeing one parent abusing the other at home. Attention seeking is common in children, because they are in constant need of love and attention, and if they do not get them at home, then their feelings of alienation can turn into resentment and frustration and then erupt in the form of bullying behavior at school ( Beaudoin and Taylor, 2004). From the literature survey that follows, one might deduce that disrespect is just one of the many forms of bullying, but in fact, disrespectful behavior towards peers can take the form of abrupt hitting and pushing.

However, any case of physical or verbal bullying of children is disrespectful to the victim who can then develop problems of depression, frustration, ill temperament and even some kinds of physical disorders like headaches etc.

This paper focuses on the disrespect children suffer at school from bullying peers. It aims to find out which of the following demographic variables influence a victim’s experience of peer disrespect: the child’s gender, place of residence, father’s job, mother’s job, father’s educational level, mother’s educational level and monthly family income.

However, whether a child is doing the bullying or getting bullied, it remains a child so there are reasons behind such behavior which can be influenced ( Mohammed and Samak, 2017). The important thing is to provide children with a positive and loving environment at home. As child needs to feel important, it is necessary that his/her voice is heard. Children must be encouraged to share their feelings of fear, anxiety and confusion with other members of their families, especially their parents, since they are the people they feel closest to ( Wiley and Cory, 2013). This will help the parents take timely action as well as pay attention to the problems of their children.

When children get bullied at school the psychological effect can remain for long period, even throughout adulthood. Being the victim of disrespect can result in trauma which leads to low concentration, depression and anxiety and thus to poor academic results in schools ( Goodstein, 2013).

Watanabe, Fontanab, da Silvaa, Mazzardoc, Bacila, and de Campos ( 2017) show that teasing by peers is basically a kind of communication, which includes elements of aggression, humor and uncertainty. Often teasers do not mean their messages literally. Teasing about weight, for example, is a common form of bullying. The target is usually obese and usually teased by name calling, implication, social exclusion, and mimicking among others. The target, however, tends to overemphasize the insult and the disrespect. There is a need is to spread awareness of this in schools and provide psychological counseling to both the bullying and the bullied child, as well as their parents.

The impact of disrespecting children can be traumatic with dimensions of fear, anxiety, feelings of betrayal, helplessness and stigmatization. The dimension of helplessness causes a child to lose control over his/her life ( Dombeck, 2007). Often powerful manipulation by the bullying child can cause helplessness in children, but even in the absence of coercion, any situation in which a child feels entrapped and cannot change can cause helplessness in children ( Beane, 2008).

As per patterns in society, teasing might occur in a power-oriented association where bullies dominate children who are not assertive ( Shetgiri, 2013). Dominance of status and a means of popularizing agreeability within groups are ensured by teasing, but disrespectful bullying hurts the victim.

Beaty and Alexeyev ( 2008) found that direct forms of bullying include teasing, taunting, threatening a victim, while child disrespect is mostly evident as verbal bullying, and also part of sexual harassment. When a student is shown obscene gestures, or is sexually humiliated and embarrassed, then that is a form of disrespect. Name-calling and spreading rumors about someone also begets disrespect.

Patchin and Hinduja’s ( 2012) research survey has also shown that many victims do not disclose the incidents to anyone, and that in the case of harassment, 29% do not reveal their experiences to anyone at all. As per reports by the victims in Patchin and Hinduja’s study’s survey of 2006, 60% are supposedly ignored by others, 50% are disrespected and around 30% suffer from name calling, while 21.4% are threatened. Anger and frustration are found to be common reactions to such harassment. Disrespect is considered to be a minor offence. Research by Wong, Lok, Lo and Ma ( 2008) has shown that among respondents in the 10-14 years age group, 88% find physical bullying unacceptable, 66% find social exclusion unacceptable, while only 46% find verbal bullying unacceptable. Usually child disrespect is a part of verbal bullying, and sometimes it is evoked for the purpose of social exclusion. Most children report cases of physical aggression only to their teachers, but for verbal bullying children tend to take revenge: only 28% want to seek help from parents and 29% from teachers, but a considerable majority decide to handle the event themselves by taking revenge thereafter. Students are found to tolerate disrespectful behavior from peers up to a point, after which they strike back ( Scherer, 2010).

Cyber bullying

Erdur-Baker ( 2010) has investigated the aspects of cyber bullying. Purposely hurtful communication is used in cyber bullying to disrespect peers. Online environments offer youngsters the liberty to express all kinds of feelings freely, which encourages them to express more violent behavior than they would otherwise. Peer disrespect therefore moves beyond the borders of the school premises. For victims, the most common forms of cyber bullying include: being ignored (60.4%), being disrespected (50%), and for a remaining 29.9%, being called names and other forms of bullying.

Students resort to cyberspace for this purpose too. Attitudes, normative beliefs, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control have significant direct impact on the intentions of children for getting involved in cyberspace bullying. The availability of mobile phones has led to SMS bullying ( Adekoya, 2016).

Research by Patchin and Hinduja ( 2011) has shown there is hardly any difference between the two areas of bullying, i.e. traditional and cyber. Both forms include disrespect, name calling, threats, rumors and gossip about a child which might spread fast. Both forms of harassment result in similar reactions – self-denigration, loss of confidence and self-esteem, depression, anger and frustration along with a strong sense of humiliation ( Patchin and Hinduja, 2012).

Since verbal bullying is very common in Hong Kong schools, certain measures have been adopted in the schools to teach the students to express their feelings of distress, anger and anxiety in a positive manner. Training in social skills and coping with stress forms a part of lessons for the bullies and the victims alike so that they can deal with peer conflict both inside and outside the school. In some schools, support from the management has led to a reduction in bullying. Chinese people are usually concerned with shame and humiliation, and shaming includes a lot of disapproving behaviors that comprise stigmatization ( Wong, Lok, Lo and Ma, 2008).

The bully

Children who show an extreme tendency to bully their peers at school do so for multiple reasons ranging from the economic condition of their family, marital problems between their parents to emotional problems among the adult members of their families. One major trait in bullies is that they may appear to be confident because they feel superior to other children, often those from a different race or a lower economic background, or those who are disabled. Taking advantage of one’s strength and ridiculing weaker children often occurs because bullies want to feel better and more powerful than others. The problem only ends when the root causes are diagnosed and treated. Only with the right guidance and a positive environment at home can a child develop respect for others which will put an end to their bullying behavior ( Wolke and Lereya, 2015).

Beaty and Alexeyev ( 2008) have found that children tend to disrespect or bully their peers who are the same age as them, rather than those who are younger, and that usually their victims are children they know or are familiar with. They also found that this victimization tends to reduce with increasing age, as potential victims tend to become more socially skilled and thus avoid victimization. Bullies are often motivated by a will to acquire higher power and status ( Saarento, Boulton and Salmivalli, 2015). Students often cross the schoolyard to resort to bullying ( Adekova, 2016).

The victim

Hamlet ( 2016) also provide an outline of a generalized profile of victims. They tend to be physically smaller, sensitive, unhappy, cautious, quiet and a little isolated from other children. Most victims are thought to be more passive and submissive; and tend to be non-assertive and not very secure. A common reaction to bullying is to cry, so offenders know that the student will not retaliate strongly. It is certainly easier to disrespect a child who has low self-esteem, or is shy and feels isolated. Children who suffer child disrespect from peers are also found to be more likely to suffer from health issues like headaches, gastric problems and insomnia.

Acceptance and rejection

In order to perceive the harassment that derives from bullying and various kinds of emotional violence, it is important to first understand the power of acceptance and rejection in human motivation. Garbarino and deLara ( 2010) have found that rejection works differently in different cultures, so it affects the lives of children in various cultures differently. Rejection is psychologically malignant, so children crave acceptance and will do anything to achieve it, however, isolation is often experienced by children because of exclusionary behavior by their peers. Students often feel powerless in the face of peer pressure, but sometimes isolation can have a dangerous impact on children who are separated from mainstream society, as they might develop risky thoughts about themselves. Often teachers will perceive the anger of adolescents, but they do not perceive the sense of helplessness underlying that anger ( Rubin, Coplan and Bowker, 2009).

Demographic factors

Shetgiri ( 2013) has found that teasing and name-calling are the most common forms of child disrespect among children. Girls experience more subtle kinds of bullying like malicious gossip, manipulation of friendships and rumor spreading. The reasons for such child disrespect are found to relate to social and academic shortcomings, religion and favoritism. The research has also shown that the victims usually come from strongly protected family backgrounds. The disrespect children with special needs experience is associated with their disability.

Beaty and Alexeyev ( 2008) also have evidence to support the proposition that more boys are bullied than girls. A study by Jankauskiene et al ( 2008) has shown the association between demographic factors like age, gender and socioeconomic status, and bullying behavior. It has also shown the relationship between psychosocial health and self-esteem, happiness, interactions with family and teachers, smoking, the intake of alcohol and bullying behavior. Out of 1162 students it was observed that 56.5% were involved in bullying either as victims or as bullies. Nowadays, the pattern is changing from open violence and aggression to disrespect and daily upset. Victimization was essentially seen to be related to factors like gender (males are more often affected than females), low self-esteem, general unhappiness and family teasing about the victim’s appearance. Environmental issues at school, like heavy workloads for teachers, the absence of educative work, and insufficient financing for pedagogical work, were seen to lead to child disrespect and bullying at schools. Age also seemed to be associated with it, but in a random fashion, so for instance, the sixth and eighth school grades experienced greater victimization. Children from wealthier families were reportedly more often the bullies, while those from poorer families were the victims. However, sometimes when low self-esteem and unhappiness led to victimization, the children came from backgrounds which were neither rich nor poor. Family background also appeared to matter for victims, so in this case, the children of single parents tended to be more victimized.

Research Method

This research focusses on the issue of child disrespect by peers on rural and urban children in contemporary Egypt, and does so in relation to a number of demographic factors. During the period May 2014 to December 2015 a survey was conducted on a sample of 1751 children, males and females, 10-16 years of age across twenty-seven Governorates of Assiut, Egypt. This is situated along the Nile River about a third of the way down Egypt from Cairo and contains both rural and urban populations. The sample of the randomly chosen 1751 children was collected from various neighborhoods and schools. Most of them lived with their parents but some lived with other family members.

Questionnaire

The survey questionnaire containing 23 items was distributed to the sample of 1751 children, who responded in one-on-one interactions. The questionnaire employed both open- and close-ended questions, which covered a range of topics relating in general to bullying and included the five below relating to child disrespect by their peers. Most of the items on the questionnaire were structured as per the Likert scale of 1 to 5. Since we were dealing with small children, parents or teachers accompanied the children sometimes but, in most cases, they were interviewed alone for the questionnaire. The 23 questions were designed for the children and it was left open for them to add other details if they wanted. If the children were 14-16 years of age, they completed the questionnaire themselves. With younger children the interviews were recorded for ease, and the questions were asked in a simplified form.

The paper aims to discover which of the following observed behavioural dimensions constructs the dependent variable “child disrespect by peers” (“Disrespect”):

1. Children make fun of my accent
2. Children make fun of my culture
3. Children don’t want to talk to me because of where I live
4. Other children make fun of my friends
5. Children annoy and disturb me because of my accent

(NOTE: In the tables below, these are respectively referred to as: accent_fun, culture_fun, don’t_talk_live, friends_fun and accent_annoy.)

The questionnaire also elicited demographic data about the participants, specifically: the child’s gender, the place of residence, the father’s job, the mother’s job, the father’s educational level, the mother’s educational level and the family’s monthly income. (NOTE: In the figure and tables below, these are respectively referred to as: gender, residence, father_job, mother_job, father_edu_level, mother_edu_level, family_income.)

Hypothesis

The present study aims to cover some of the gaps in the existing literature by focusing on the impact of demographic predictors on acts of child disrespect by child peers. It also aims to show how child disrespect is mediated through the five behavioral dimensions listed above. As a result, the present study emphasizes only one of the aspects of bullying, which is the disrespect children experience subsequent to acts of bullying.

The paper aims to discover which of the above observed behavioural dimensions constructs the dependent variable “child disrespect” (“Disrespect”):

The paper also aims to discover which of the above demographic covariates relating to the child’s environment also affect the dependent variable.

Methodology

The research undertakes a positivist approach using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) along with path diagrams which are used to extract child disrespect from the five factors. Structural Equation Modeling is run to verify the above factor structure and evaluate the influence of predictors on child disrespect.

SPSS software is used for the statistical analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis with path diagram models is used, to estimate the goodness of fit tests for the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).

Instrument: Reliability, Validity and Factor Extraction

The reliability of the questionnaire has been measured by the use of the KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) Bartlett’s test. Child disrespect by peers was tested as a construct of the observed behavioral dimensions of: Children make fun of my accent; Children make fun of my culture; Children don’t want to talk to me because of where I live; Other children make fun of my friends, and Children annoy and disturb me because of my accent.

The dimension “Disrespect” was assumed to load on all five of the above-mentioned variables, so their suitability was explored in EFA in SPSS initially. First, the suitability of factor analysis was tested via KMO, Bartlett’s test. The closer the value of the KMO result is to 1, the better. The obtained result of 0.655 shows moderate suitability. The sphericity assumption holds since Bartlett’s test is significant at the 5% level, consequently, it is acceptable to take the factor analysis further. The factor Disrespect has been extracted which is associated with the variables included in the dimension. The criterion for extraction is Eigenvalue higher than 1. The extracted factor explains 38.51% of the shared variance of the variables.

After that successful Exploratory Factor Analysis, further confirmatory factor analysis was completed. However, the following covariates relating to the child’s environment were added to the model since it was assumed that they will affect the Latent Variable too: gender, place of residence, father’s job, mother’s job, father’s education level, mother’s education level and monthly family income.

Predictive factors

It was important to test for a predictor (i.e. an Independent Variable, or Latent Variable) to begin with, which could statistically and significantly influence the dependent variable Disrespect. This involved two steps. First, the dependent variable was extracted and evaluated according to its five determinant variables using EFA. The behavioral variables which construct Disrespect have been identified above. Secondly, a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was carried out for the dependent variable, Disrespect, to illustrate its association with the various independent demographic variables identified above too.

Findings

Because of the supportive EFA results, the Latent Variable, Disrespect, is assumed to influence the following four observed variables related to child disrespect by peers: Children make fun of my accent; Children don’t want to talk to me because of where I live; Other children make fun of my friends, and Children annoy and disturb me because of my accent, but not the fifth one, Children make fun of my culture. The effect of the seven demographic variables on Disrespect were also inspected. A SEM model ( Structural Equations Model) was constructed to involve all the demographic factors affecting the dimension, along with their assumed covariances.

Figure 1 represents the relationships between all the variables described above along with their estimated coefficients, variances and covariances.

Figure 1. Path Diagram for the five dimensions of Disrespect and their relation to the demographic variables

From Table 1, in relation to the demographic variables, it can be seen that:

1. A mother’s educational level (p-value < 0.001) significantly affects child disrespect by peers. The more educated the mother is, the less disrespect her child is exposed to (estimated coefficient = -0.088).
2. Gender (p-value < 0.001) also affects child disrespect by peers significantly, as females are less exposed to disrespect than males (estimated coefficient = -0.233).
3. A mother’s job (p-value = 0.008 < 0.001) significantly affects child disrespect by peers. Children whose mothers are house-wives are more exposed to disrespect than those
4. whose mothers are employed (estimated coefficient = 0.090).
5. Culture does not seem to provide a reason for child disrespect by peers.
6. Residential status, father’s income or father’s education and family income do not have any significant impact on child disrespect by peers because their corresponding p-values are greater than 0.05.

In relation to the five behavioral variables, Disrespect can be seen to be a construct of only:

1. making fun of accent (p-value < 0.05 )
2. making fun place of residence (p-value < 0.05 )
3. making fun friends (p-value < 0.05)
4. being annoyed because of accent. (p-value < 0.05).

The Model-Fit-Values in Table 2 provide information on the goodness-of-fit of the proposed model. That is assessed by comparing the proposed model (the “Default model”) with the

Independent model and Saturated models. The Saturated model is a fully explanatory model where the parameter estimates are just as many as the degrees of freedom, however this model is the least parsimonious, due to which some of the goodness-of-fit measures are 1 and the rest (based on parsimony) are 0. The Independent model (the “Null model”) assumes all relationships are equal to 0; there are no correlations in this model. As has already been said, the model of interest is the Default model and therefore its goodness-of-fit indices are commented on below.

Normed Fit Index) being the most important. It provides information on where the proposed model is situated between the Independent model (with the worst fit) and the Saturated model (with the perfect fit). In this case the proposed model is 39.9% away from the worst fit, but still nearly 60% away from the perfect fit. All the other indices (RFI, IFI, TLI and CFI), are modifications of the NFI. Apparently, there is much room for improvement in the model. Table 2, the Baseline comparisons table includes various indices, the NFI (

The Parsimony ratio (PRATIO), as the name suggests provides goodness-of-fit measures which are adjusted for parsimony. Therefore, the Parsimony ratio is 0 for the Saturated model (as explained above) and 1 for the Independent model. Table 2 provides information for the Chi-square similar statistic, which is the Non-Centrality Parameter (NCP). Given the confidence interval does not include 0, it is therefore significant. CMIN is based on the NCP and provides the same information in another way (divided by the df). RMSEA is a major estimate for the goodness of fit of a model and values above 0.1 point towards an unacceptable model, which is the case here as RMSEA = 0.148.

Discussion

These findings show that mother’s education, mother’s job, and child’s gender have statistically significant impacts on Child disrespect, but location of residence, family income, father’s job and father’s educational level do not. Emotional violence, harassment and disrespect towards peers have a demeaning effect on the atmosphere of a school, but student leaders can play a role in lessening the bullying behavior in children. From a systemic perspective, bullying and other disrespectful behavior cannot be prevented, which means that the school has to focus on either disrespectful behavior alone, or also focus on activities such as physical aggression and extortion.

Mother’s education and mother’s job

This study has found that the mother’s education and mother’s job are both significantly associated with child disrespect: children suffer less child disrespect if their mother has a better education and if their mother has a job. This is consistent with pre-existing research. It seems that if the mother’s education level is high, then she is well-equipped to educate her child in how to deal with harassment so as not to fall victim to disrespect by peers. Additionally, it seems that if a mother is working then her child seems to be more self-confident in handling acts of disrespect. Strom, Strom and Beckert ( 2008) have shown that the mother’s behavior is associated with communication, use of time, teaching, satisfaction, and needs for information, and that parenting regimes are influenced by subcultures. Development experts recommend that parents need to listen closely to the views of their young. Children can improve themselves more successfully if their parents are aware of their observations. Parents often view the scope of their guidance by evaluating their ability to teach children about being healthy and care for the feelings of others. They attempt to treat children with equality and help them to cope with stress. A mother’s behavior can be streamlined if she is educated and knows the difficulties her children are probably exposed to. Working mothers tend to be less depressed than those who stay at home. They are more confident of themselves and can impart the same in their children ( Hochschild and Machung, 2012) Research by Smokowski et al ( 2013) has shown the mother’s knowledge to be important for supervising their children’s homework, and also for guiding their children in dealing with disrespect from others. This can be achieved with proper intervention strategies and behavior management programs.

Murray et al ( 2014) mention that parental involvement also reflects the commitment of their resources and time in the academic development of their children. Six types of parental involvement include establishing a supportive learning ambience at home, encouraging effective communication practices between school and home, taking part in the decision-making processes of the school, helping the school in supporting its students, and supporting children to do their homework and coordinating with stakeholders. Home-based parental involvement comprises practices associated with the education of children taking place within the home. Such parental involvement by the mother is possible particularly with her having a better education herself. This could explain why our study found the variables mother’s job and education more significant than those of the father.

Certain contradictory research also exists which does not quite support the importance of mother’s job and education. Kumar et al ( 2014) found that working parents in low-income families often have difficulty in attending school meetings or being involved in school activities, because they invariably have multiple jobs and their working hours are less likely to be flexible. Such a working regime could also reduce the time they are able to spend with their children for quality interactions, In such cases it is more likely therefore for those children to become victims of all kinds of bullying. Hebert et al ( 2016) also suggest that a mother having job might enhance her child’s self-esteem which makes the child less likely to be subject to bullying. Our study supports this as well; however it is to be noted that family income does not show any significant relation with the disrespect children suffer from. This can be seen because disrespecting of children along with the mother having a job decreases for all family income levels, low, moderate and high.

Gender

Our study finds that female children are more exposed to disrespect than male children, which contradicts some of the literature which suggests that boys are more prone to such forms of bullying. Relations between attitudes, the regulation of group and student behavior in situations involving the bullying of others have been explored in a research-based study of 1220 children of 9-12 years of age by Salmivalli and Voeten ( 2004). Attitude was seen to predict the behavior of students. The age of the class was found to have more impact on girls than boys in understanding behaviors related to bullying. The research showed that girls have a stronger anti-bullying attitude, while the attitudes of boys towards bullying show greater variance in class. When a student believes that laughing with others when a child is being bullied is not bad or that bullying does not affect the victim, then it implies that the child concerned is involved in bullying of some kind or other. Findings reveal that gender difference has a great influence on attitudes and norms. Social context appears to have more implications for girls than boys for bullying-related behaviors.

Age

With respect to age, Salmivalli and Voeten ( 2004) found that conformity with peer pressure heightens during 11-13 years of age, while conformity with pro-social pressures peaks during 11-12 years of age and that antisocial pressures heighten sometime later. The variance between classrooms in lower and upper grades is greater than the variance between individuals within a classroom. In the lower grades teachers are more effective in controlling children’s disrespectful attitudes towards peers than in the upper grades and that teacher’s tolerance levels regulate bullying more effectively than peer group norms.

Residence

Kumar et al ( 2014) found that school violence is observed more in urban schools than rural or suburban schools, and that with greater involvement of parents, school violence is lowered, so safety at schools is associated with parental involvement. Here residence plays a role as per the literature. This is contradictory to our study which shows residence has no impact on disrespect by peers.

Culture

Although our study does not reveal any association between child disrespect and making fun of culture, Shea et al, ( 2016) have shown that Latinos and Afro Americans are less prone than White Americans to victimization by bullying. Jansen et al ( 2016) have also shown that students from rigid cultures are more prone to become victims of disrespect especially when the theme of such bullying involves making fun of the victim’s culture. Culture often provides a context for showing disrespect towards peers. Jansen et al ( 2016) have observed that children from ethnic minority backgrounds are often victims of name calling and social exclusion. Education in multicultural contexts has a positive relation with racist victimization. This impact has been found for Dutch children, where children belonging to ethnic minorities are victims of negative behaviors, which has thrown light on various forms of racism prominent in children’s lives. However, Jansen et al ( 2016) have also found that the extent of racism might depend on the school’s setting and organization. Curricula in many countries are designed to subdue racial feelings and discrimination, which can bring about positive group associations. School segregation has been known to generate more racism and discrimination. Their research has shown that students from ethnic minorities are teased and disrespected with name calling more often than white children are. In a study by Pouwels ( 2017) it has been found that Turkish children are most often disliked by their peers, followed by Moroccans. The reason could be that these children are strongly bonded with their families and households, which strongly stress preserving their culture, and have a long history of being migrant workers. Natives of these cultures lay strong emphasis on appropriate cultural behavior. Thus, we can generalize from these findings that children from families with strong and strict beliefs are most likely to experience child disrespect from peers. This could also be because these children react more sensitively to name calling or any abuse related to their religion and culture. Apart from name calling and teasing, exclusion from playing based on ethnicity is also another form of harassment.

Social skills

Crothers and Kolbert ( 2008) have considered whether poor or absent social skills are part of the disruptive behavior that manifests in disrespecting others. Controlling and modifying behavioral problems becomes more challenging for the teachers than academic issues. A student first needs to be identified as either a bully, a victim or a bystander, whose dominant characteristics are aggressive, assertive or passive respectively. After that, intervention methods can be designed. These writers have also suggested some intervention techniques for classroom management, however, rather than just controlling behavior, classroom management techniques can be pursued via instruction, curriculum and school environment. For instance, peer tutoring, cooperative-learning activities and pairing of older and younger children are essential for generating feelings of compassion, protectiveness and friendship which can subdue instincts to show any kind of aggression and disrespect. Proper parent-teacher collaboration is required to foster an air of friendship and socialization between home and school, as that is needed for combating disrespectful activities among children.

For any fire to burn, oxygen is required: if that is taken away the fire goes out. Similarly, if peer attention is taken away from the bullying, it also tends to reduce ( Shetgiri, 2013). So, if bystanders use a stop response and allow or assist the victim to walk away, it can help minimize bullying. Bullying will also be minimized when bullies or children showing disrespect do not get the attention they want for their activity. A cordial environment can be encouraged by those parents who can work with their connections in the school and community. Engaging students as volunteers to solve the problems between their peers can also help in making them better as persons ( Rosen, De Ornellas and Scott, 2017). If a child grows up expecting respect he/she will also learn to behave with respect for others. Peers who watch an act of child disrespect without doing anything, are also passively supporting the act ( Craig, Pepler and Cummings, 2013). Parenting and the way teachers manage acts of disruption among students in class also determine how well a school is able to tackle the problem. Promoting an environment of mutual respect and friendliness is important for the healthy growth of children.

Strengths and limitations and future scope of research

This paper shows the common, traditional experience of child disrespect in Egypt, the demographic factors responsible for that and the representation of disrespect through various behavioral dimensions. The results for Assiut should be generalizable for other countries even if they have different demographics, because the paper shows the demographic predictors of child disrespect which could be common for other countries as well. The paper could initiate future research along the same lines for other nations, especially western ones and a comparative analysis could be done between western and non-western nations on the same basis. Research on various measures and their positive impact in tackling the consequences of child disrespect can be further carried out.

Conclusions

In conclusion this paper tells us that mothers have a much greater role than fathers in influencing the child disrespect their children experience, because a mother’s job and education have great impact on lessening the victimization their children may otherwise suffer. In the conventional family structure mothers usually take more responsibility for their children’s development, so their involvement plays a decisive role in their children falling victim of child disrespect from peers.

Gender also seems to have a significant impact, as our study, unlike the literature, shows girls are more prone to disrespect than boys. This could be the result of girls’ higher levels of sensitivity than boys. Family income seems to affect victimization according to the literature, but this present study shows no such significance. Out of the five behavioral dimensions, only four are significantly affected by child disrespect: making fun of accent, making fun place of residence, making fun of friends, and annoying a child because of his/her accent.

Cuffy ( 2016) has investigated the effectiveness of a program called Bully Busters that can be used to prevent bullying. Such a program could be used to change teacher knowledge and student behavior regarding classroom bullying. Disciplinary offenses include verbal threats, harassment, striking, slapping, verbal abuse, insults, racial slurs and disrespectful comments. The Bully Busters program has been found to be an effective method for changing an instructor’s self-efficacy when dealing with and managing students with learning and behavior disorders, disruptive behavior as well as those who are mildly disruptive. To counter the long-term destructive effects of child disrespect, nurturing an environment of respect towards everyone around a child is very important for schools and their families. Children can then grow up realizing the importance of respect and thus become sensitive to anything causing child disrespect. In this case, there is more chance that children may realize they should respect others in order to receive respect in return - which promotes respect among peers. Schools and parents need to work together for the purpose of combating child disrespect by peers.