A Comparison of Perceptions of Class Environment, Educational Vitality, and Bullying among Single-Parent and Two-Parent Children

Considering the ever increasing growth of single-parent families and the problems faced by such families which influence the children in this environment, it is important to study their educational and behavioral problems in single-parent and two-parent families. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the student`s perceptions of the classroom environment, educational vitality, and bullying among two-parent and single-parent students. The research method was causal-comparative. In order to achieve the above-mentioned goals, 69 pupils from single-parent families (40 children with divorced parents, and 29 with deceased parents) who were studying at elementary schools in the city of Yazd, Iran were selected through convenience sampling, and 69 other students from two-parent families were also selected as the control group. The participants in the control group were ensure to be similar to the single-parent students in terms of variables such as gender, educational level, physical conditions, and educational performance were matched with single-parent students. The instruments of the study included Perceptions of the Students questionnaire from Gentri, Gabal & Riza (2002), Educational Vitality questionnaire from Hossein Chari & Dehghani Zadeh (2012), and Illinois Bullying scale (2001). The data were analyzed through inferential statistics, namely paired samples t-test and independent samples t-test as well as Wilcoxon test and Mann-Whitney U test. The results revealed that there was no significant difference between perceptions of classroom environment and educational vitality among single-parent and two-parent students. However, the rate of bullying among single-parent students was significantly higher than the students from ordinary families.