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How
common is bullying?
When over 150,000
pupils in Norway and Sweden were asked about bullying, their
answers revealed that it was a big problem. 15 per cent
of the pupils were involved in bullying - about 9 per cent
were victims and about 7 per cent bullied others. More frequent
bullying (once a week or more often) affected 5 percent
of pupils. These numbers may seem alarming, yet studies
in other countries point to bullying levels that are as
high, if not higher, than bullying levels in Scandinavian
schools.
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Comment
Research into bullying
has been pioneered in Scandinavia. Studies throughout the
world have been inspired and informed by work in Norway
and Sweden.
(Andrew Mellor)
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Article details
D Olweus, S Limber
and S F Mihalic, 'History and Description of the Bullying
Prevention Program', in 'Blueprints for Violence Prevention',
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the
University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. This paper can be
downloaded
here.
The information in
this paper was taken from D Olweus, S Limber and S F Mihalic
(1999), 'Blueprints for Violence Prevention. Book Nine:
Bullying Prevention Program', Boulder, CO: Center for the
Study and Prevention of Violence.
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Graph
details
'Percentage
of Norwegian and Swedish Students Being Bullied', from the
article online by Olweus, Limber and Mihalic quoted above,
page 2, figure 2.
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Author details
Professor Dan Olweus
was the first person to carry out a thorough research project
on  bullying.
This large, long term study which began in Sweden in 1970,
was to provide the inspiration for many who felt that bullying
in schools should be challenged rather than accepted. Since
the 1970s, his work in this area had continued with force.
Indeed, in 1997-99, he led a group in a large project which
introduced the widely respected Olweus (anti-bullying) programme
to schools in Norway. Professor Olweus is based at the Research
Centre for Health Promotion, University of Bergen in Norway
and can be contacted by email.
In a 1989, Scottish
study, 942 children in Scotland were asked about bullying
in school. Half said they had been bullied at least once
or twice during their time at school and slightly fewer
admitted to bullying someone else. A quarter had been bullied
'sometimes or more often'. Just less than a third had never
been involved either as bully or victim. However, when the
pupils were asked about their experiences over the last
couple of months, 6% had been bullied 'sometimes or more
often' and 4% had bullied someone else more than once or
twice.
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Article details
A Mellor (1997) 'Bullying
in Scottish Secondary Schools', SCRE Spotlight Number 23.
Available to download
from SCRE's website.
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Graph
details
'Pupils
involved in bullying during their school career', from the
Mellor article available online above, table 1, page 2.
Please note, in the graph each category is exclusive.
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Author details
 At
the time of the study, Andrew Mellor was a practising teacher
who had received funding from the Scottish Education Department
to carry out this project. He has been actively involved
in anti-bullying work in Scotland for almost 15 years, speaking
at conferences, writing for academic and non-academic audiences
and running in-service courses for teachers. He is now manager
of the Anti-Bullying Network, which is funded by the Scottish
Executive and based at The University of Edinburgh.
One of the largest
studies of bullying involved over 28,000 children in Australia
between 1993 and 1998. About half of the children (between
8 and 18 years) said they had not been bullied that year.
However some children were being bullied regularly: one
in five boys said they were bullied weekly and one in six
girls said the same.
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Article details
K Rigby (2002) 'New
Perspectives on Bullying', London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Limited. Information about this book including contents,
reviews and ordering details are available here.
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Graph
details
'Incidence
of victimisation in Australian schools (percentages reported
during the school year)', from the Rigby article above,
table 3.1.
|
Boys |
Girls |
| Every
day |
2.9 |
1.2 |
| Most
days |
5.7 |
3.8 |
| Once
or twice a week |
14.3 |
11.0 |
| Less
than once a week |
27.3 |
26.2 |
| Never |
49.8 |
57.9 |
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Author details
 Ken
Rigby is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Psychology
and an educational consultant at the University of South
Australia. He has been involved in major studies of bullying
in Australia and has published widely on this topic. For
more information about Dr Rigby and his work see the
bullying pages here. Ken may be contacted by e-mail.
Over 2,000 pupils
took part in a 1997 study about bullying in English schools.
When asked how often they had been bullied since Christmas
(6 months before) most of the pupils (87.8%) said that they
had not been bullied or that it had happened only once or
twice. However 12.2% said they had been bullied 2 or 3 times
a month, about once a week or several times a week. When
they were asked about bullying others, most of the pupils
(97.1%) said they had not bullied another student since
Christmas, or only once or twice. However, some pupils (2.9%)
did admit to bullying others two or three times a month
or more often.
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Article details
P K Smith and Shu
Shu (2000) 'What Good Schools Can Do About Bullying: findings
from a survey in English schools after a decade of research
and action', in 'Childhood', volume 7 (2).
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Graph
details
'Frequency of being
bullied and bullying others for overall sample and for boys
and girls (in percentages)' from the Smith and Shu article
above, table 1, page 198.
| Being
bullied |
Not
bullied |
Once/twice |
2,3/month |
1/week |
several/
week |
| Overall |
55.5 |
32.3 |
4.3 |
3.8 |
4.1 |
| Boys |
56.8 |
30.5 |
4.9 |
4.0 |
3.8 |
| Girls |
53.9 |
34.3 |
3.7 |
3.6 |
4.5 |
| Bullying
others |
Did
not bully |
Once/twice |
2,3/month |
1/
week |
several/
week |
| Overall |
73.4 |
23.7 |
1.3 |
1.0 |
0.6 |
| Boys |
71.9 |
24.1 |
1.7 |
1.5 |
0.8 |
| Girls |
75.1 |
23.1 |
0.9 |
0.5 |
0.4 |
'Frequency of being
bullied, and bullying others, two or three times a month
or more for overall sample by year group (in percentages)'
from the Smith and Shu article above, table 2, page 198.
2/3
month
or more often |
Year
6 (10 years) |
Year
7 (11 years) |
Year
8 (12 years) |
Year
9 (13 years) |
Year
10 (14 years) |
| Been
bullied |
18.7 |
13.1 |
12.1 |
10.5 |
7.5 |
| Bully
others |
5.3 |
1.4 |
2.8 |
3.6 |
3.3 |
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Author details
 Professor
Peter K Smith is Head of the Unit for School and Family
Studies, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, London.
He has been involved in bullying research for a number of
years and has published widely on this topic.
Peter Smith may be
contacted by email,
and the website of the Unit for School and Family Studies
at Goldsmiths College may be found
here.
In 1990, over 6,000
children from junior/middle and secondary schools in Sheffield
were asked about their experiences of bullying. Over a quarter
of the children (27%) from the junior/middle schools said
they had been bullied 'sometimes' or more often and 10%
said they were being bullied at least once a week. The numbers
dropped when secondary pupils were asked, with 10% saying
they had been bullied 'sometimes' or more often and 4% saying
that they were bullied at least once a week. When asked
about bullying others, 12% of the junior/middle pupils admitted
to bullying 'sometimes' or more often and 4% to bullying
once a week or more. 1% of the secondary school pupils in
the study admitted to bullying once a week or more.
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Article details
I Whitney and P Smith
(1993) 'A Survey of the Nature and Extent of Bullying in
Junior/Middle and Secondary Schools', in: 'Educational Research',
Volume 35, Number 1, Spring.
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Graph
details
'Percentage of boys
and girls (averaged by class and school) who reported being
bullied and bullying others during this school term' from
the Whitney and Smith article above, table 1, page 8.
|
Junior/Middle
Schools |
Secondary
Schools |
|
Sometimes
or more |
Once
a week or more |
Sometimes
or more |
Once
a week or more |
| Been
bullied: |
|
|
|
|
| Boys
(N = 1271) |
28 |
10 |
12 |
5 |
| Girls
(N = 1352) |
27 |
10 |
9 |
4 |
| Overall
(N = 2623) |
27 |
10 |
10 |
4 |
| Bullied
others: |
|
|
|
|
| Boys
(N = 2152) |
16 |
6 |
8 |
2 |
| Girls
(N = 1983) |
7 |
1 |
4 |
1 |
| Overall
(N = 4135) |
12 |
4 |
6 |
1 |
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Author details
Professor
Peter K Smith is Head of the Unit for School and Family
Studies, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, London.
He has been involved in bullying research for a number of
years and has published widely on this topic.
Peter Smith may be
contacted by email,
and the website of the Unit for School and Family Studies
at Goldsmiths College may be found
here.
The answers of over
4,000 children from 25 secondary schools in Keele, England
revealed that in a week 70 pupils in a school with 1,000
were bullied in some way or another. When all the children
in the study were asked about verbal bullying (name calling
or unpleasant teasing) their answers were also alarming
- 24 percent were bullied in this way 'often or very often',
and another 28 percent of pupils suffered teasing and name
calling 'sometimes'.
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Article details
D Glover, G Gough,
M Johnstone and N Cartwright (2000), 'Bullying in 25 Secondary
Schools: incidence, impact and intervention', in 'Educational
Research', Volume 42 Number 2, Summer.
A New Zealand study
of bullying in the 1990s asked 259 boys and girls (11 -
13 years old) about bullying. At least half and possibly
even three quarters of the children said they had been bullied.
Ten per cent of them had been bullied weekly. These very
high levels covered both physical and emotional bullying.
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Article details
A brief description
of the study can be found on the 'No
Bully' web page (see the Bullying Information section
for Teachers and Parents).
In a study of bullying
in 120 schools in Northern Ireland (in the year 2000), 40%
of primary pupils said that they had been bullied recently.
Twenty five per cent admitted to bullying another pupil.
When secondary pupils were asked, 30% said that they had
been bullied recently and 28% said that they bullied another
pupil.
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Article details
'Bullying in Schools:
a Northern Ireland study', Research Briefing (RB) 8/2002.
Department of Education, Northern Ireland. Published October
2002. This document can be downloaded
here (.pdf document). A copy of the full report 'Bullying
in Schools: a Northern Ireland study' is available from
the Department of Education, Northern Ireland, Rathgael
House, Balloo Road, Bangor, Co Down BT19 7PR, Northern Ireland.
Price £5.
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