Background to the Research

• Bullying has been identified in many research studies as one of the most pressing concerns facing young people in the United Kingdom today. In 1998, Childline found that bullying accounted for 14% of calls from NI. Furthermore, a major study commissioned by the Department of Education in NI indicated that 40% of primary school pupils and 30% of post-primary pupils had experienced bullying in the few months prior to data collection.
  

Research Approach

• The NI YLT survey has investigated young people's experiences of school bullying for a number of years by asking questions about the extent of school bullying and about the help that their schools offer pupils for dealing with it. This research update explores this data from the 1998 (425 12-17 year olds), 2004 (824 16-year olds), and 2005 (819 16-year olds) surveys, focusing primarily on the 2005 results.
  

Main Findings

• The YLT 2005 indicates that bullying is still a problem in the school environment; about three quarters of respondents felt that pupils at their school get bullied a little and one in ten said pupils get bullied a lot or not at all.
• In YLT 2004, 63% of respondents said they were 'never' bullied at school, compared to 68% of respondents in 2005. Of the 30% of the total 2005 respondents who said they had been bullied, 28% said it had happened 'a lot' or 'a little' during the previous two months, while 72% said 'not at all'.
• The YLT 2005 found that young people from 'not at all well-off' families and males who had been same-sex attracted reported high levels of experiences of bullying. Respondents from schools with an 'all or nearly all Protestant' population and those from secondary schools were more likely to say that pupils got bullied a lot or a little at their school than respondents from other school types. Those who attended schools with 'about half Protestant and half Catholic' students were the most likely to say that students were 'not at all' bullied at their school. Only 6% of respondents from grammar schools said that pupils in their school got bullied 'a lot', compared to 16% of respondents from secondary schools. The 1998 YLT survey produced corresponding figures of 8% and 21%.
• The YLT 2005 found that young people who had been bullied were also more likely to feel pressurised into smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, losing weight, and having sexual intercourse.
• 7% of respondents in the YLT 2005 revealed that they had bullied others and 90% had not. Males, and those who had been bullied themselves, were more likely to say that they had bullied a fellow student than other groups; respondents from the Catholic community were less likely to say this.
• 16% of those respondents in the YLT 2005 who felt unfavourably towards minority ethnic communities admitted to bullying other students, compared with only 3% of those who felt favourably towards such groups.
• The YLT 1998 found that 59% of respondents thought that their school had an official bullying policy.
• The proportion of schools that had particular staff members at school to whom students can go to for help with bullying was smaller in 1998 (58%), than in 2005 (67% of YLT respondents)
• There was a huge increase in the numbers who said whether they could or would actually speak to staff in the event of being bullied depended on the situation, perhaps indicating a need for schools to provide a variety of avenues of support for students. There was also a clear gender difference - YLT 1998 found that females were more likely than males to say they would do so, YLT 2005 found that males were more likely to say they would do so, and that females were more likely to say it depended on the situation.
• The YLT 2005 found that just over half of all respondents said their school provided real help. Female respondents who had been same-sex attracted at least once were more likely to feel this than heterosexual females. Those who attended schools with 'all or nearly all Catholic' pupils were more likely to say this than those who attended schools of other religious backgrounds, although those who attended planned integrated schools were most likely to say this.
• Of the YLT 2005 students who said bullying doesn't happen at all in their school, 82% said that their school provided real help; this would suggest that effective school bullying policies may directly affect the extent of bullying in a school.