ABSTRACT
We report on the bullying problem in Spain, a southern European country which is currently changing its education system. A brief description of the country and its sociocultural indicators is followed by a presentation of the study we carried out in five secondary schools from the state system in Andalucia, the southernmost region of the country. Using an adapted version of the Olweus Questionnaire (1989), which we translated into Spanish, we studied 859 pupils between the ages of 11 and 16. The study focuses on some questions taken from the questionnaire, which we analysed in order to highlight the following aspects of the problem: the extent of bullying in schools and the differences in the incidents with respect to gender and age; the forms which the bullying takes and the areas of highest risk in the schools; identification of the bullies and their way of behaving; a profile of the schoolchildren who are involved in these situations of interpersonal bullying, and the pupils' behaviour and attitudes towards these problems.
