Peer Bullying in the Disciplines of Education and Psychology: A Thematic Analysis of Doctoral Dissertations (2021–2025)

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to examine doctoral dissertations written on the concept of peer bullying in the fields of “education and training” and “psychology” between 2021 and 2025. For this purpose, 16 doctoral dissertations meeting the relevant criteria in the database of the Council of Higher Education National Thesis Center were analyzed. In the study, the dissertations were systematically examined in terms of university, department, year, research method, study group/sample, and the variables addressed together with peer bullying. The document analysis technique was used to analyze the obtained data. The findings indicate that the examined dissertations were largely concentrated at Anadolu University and Atatürk University and were mostly conducted within the Department of Educational Sciences. In addition, it was determined that the number of dissertations increased in 2025 and that quantitative and mixed methods were more commonly preferred in the studies. In terms of study groups, middle school and high school students were the most frequently studied participants; regarding variables, psychological resilience/resiliency was found to be the variable most frequently examined together with peer bullying. As a result, it can be stated that doctoral dissertations on peer bullying have increased significantly in recent years, that research has been concentrated in certain universities and educational levels, and that a particular focus on psychological variables has attracted attention in these studies. This situation indicates that research in the field tends to develop in terms of both methodological approaches and variable diversity, suggesting that future studies focusing on different age groups, more diverse samples, and qualitatively oriented designs may contribute to the field.