Introduction and aim Violence is a widespreading social problem including school aged children and adolescents in Turkey as everywhere in the world. The present study was conducted descriptively to determine the prevalence of bullying among 6th, 7th and 8th graders in secondary schools of a city province in Turkey.

Method Universe of the study consists of 3059 students attending secondary schools in Nevsehir province in Turkey. Randomly selected 1287 students were recruited in this cross-sectional study. Ethical approval and institutional permission were obtained while consents were taken from students and their families. Data were collected with Individual Information Form, Traditional Peer Bullying Scale with a face-to-face interview and analysed with descriptive statistics and chi-square test on computer.

Findings It was determined that mean age of the students was 12.81 ± 0.93 years, of them 51.7% were girls, 12.0% did bullying and 15.9% were exposed to bullying (victim) while 15.1% were both bully/victim. Boys and 8th graders were found to bully more than girls (p^th and 7th graders, respectively (p^th grade and with a moderate level of economic status were found to be exposed to bullying more than 7th and 8th graders (p0.05).

Conclusion and recommendations Consequently, bullying at schools is a serious problem and programs including students, teachers and parents about preventing bullying should be developed and generalised.