The research community in the UK and elsewhere has come to realise over the past 20 years that it needs to examine what is understood to be bullying behaviour and in particular the complexity of the interaction between bully and bullied by looking at its nature, extent, frequency and intensity. There are many definitions of bullying. Roland in 1988 defined it as "long standing violence, physical or psychological, conducted by an individual or a group and directed against an individual who is not able to defend himself in the actual situation" Tattum in 1988 defined it as "a wilful, conscious desire to hurt another and put him/her under stress" Besag defined bullying in 1990 as, "the repeated attack - physical, psychological, social or verbal - by those in a position of power, which is formally or situationally defined, on those who are powerless to resist, with the intention of causing distress for their own gain or gratification." She acknowledges that no definition can satisfactorily encompass all the aspects of a highly complex behaviour such as this and that it is in the interpretation of the behaviour by victim and bully that the power lies. Bullying has existed in schools for as long as schools have existed though it has not been measured in a systematic way until recently. We can now conclude from the research done over the past 17 years that at least 10% of children in schools are probably at any one time involved in bullying to a marked degree either as bully or victim. Research in Scandinavia by Olweus in 1978 showed that approximately 10% were victims and 8% bullies. He also found that many people seemed to regard it as an essential part of growing up, toughening up children, especially boys for adult life. Perhaps this is why the education community has been so long in acknowledging it as a problem. In 1990 Rigby and Slee suggest that there are features, like the competitive ethos, in the school environment that harden the attitudes of children towards victims. School student’s victims are reluctant to tell parents or teachers for fear of making it worse. and some assume an attitude of blaming themselves. The effects of bullying are far reaching. Apart from the physical dangers they are exposed to, victims may lose their self-esteem and experience emotional and social difficulties as shown by Olweus in 1978. Some victims begin to think that they deserve to be bullied as shown by Roland in 1980. O'Moore and Hillery in 1991 found that children who were victims of bullying had low self-esteem seeing themselves in a more negative light than students who had not been bullied. They also found that bullies had low self-esteem in relation to intellectual and school status. Tattum and Tattum found in 1992 found that such low self-perceptions are damaging and persist into adulthood. They also showed how bullying affects the other children who witness it, with less aggressive pupils being drawn in or feeling intimidated. The bullies are also at risk. Lane in 1989 showed that they develop anti-social behaviour patterns which can endure into adult life 1989 Olweus found that 8 year old bullies are five times as likely to obtain a criminal record by the age of 30 than 8 year olds who are not bullies. These findings are confirmed by a 22 year longitudinal study in the USA by Eron and others in 1987. They found that young bullies have a 1 in 4 chance of having a criminal record by age 30, whilst other children have a 1 in 20 chance. By the age of 30 they found that those who had been bullies as children were more likely to have children who were bullies and to have convictions for violent crimes. Kidscape conducted in 1998 a retrospective survey of over 1000 adults to find out if bullying in school affects people in later life. It showed that bullying not only affects self esteem in adulthood but also the ability to make friends, succeed in education and in work and social relationships. 46% of those who were bullied contemplated suicide compared to 7% who were not. There tends to be a belief that because bullying is by nature a secretive activity there is little that teachers can do about it. In fact a number of studies reflect the under-estimation by teachers and parents of bullying when compared with self and peer reports by students. For example Ziegler and Rosenstein-Manner in a Canadian study 14% of parents were aware of their child being bullied compared to 20% of children reporting being bullied. 14% of teachers said there was no bullying in their classes in one week compared to 6% children. Until recently in the United Kingdom neither the government nor the heads of schools have paid much attention to the occurance and the effects of bullying. In 1987 the literature on disruptive behaviour was extensive but there was very little written on bullying in the UK. In that year the Council of Europe had a conference about bullying in Norway where there had been a national anti-bullying campaign since 1983 after the suicide of three adolescent boys who had been victimised. In the five years that followed there was significant progress on raising awareness of the problem in the UK. Over the past eight years there has been a raising of awareness and interest in bullying in schools amongst researchers, the media and teachers. Various approaches have been made both in research and in prevention activities with regard to bullying. In 1988 the first book on bullying was published here. Other initiatives emerged, like the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation joining with British Telecom to fund a national anti-bullying campaign in the UK to send copies of Bullying: a Child's View (La Fontaine,1991)and Governors and Bullying (ACE1990) to all schools. All research shows that bullying is a considerable problem during the school years . In the UK there have been deaths of several victims of bullying and the government has gradually accepted that bullying is serious and widespread . In the Elton Report on Discipline in Schools published in 1989 it was recommended that teachers be alert to bullying and to take action. In 1991 the DES commissioned research from Sheffield University aimed at developing stategies to combat bullying. In the UK there have been two main types of research into bullying : the application of scientific rigour to understand bullying but not primarily to stop it; and research which is aimed at reducing bullying but is less concerned with the scientific rigour of pre and post testing and control groups. Boulton and Underwood in 1992 and Boulton and Smith in 1994 are examples of the former type of research. and the DES Sheffield Bullying Project in1991 is an example of a rigorous design to research anti-bullying strategies. Boulton and Underwood's research in the UK with middle school students (8-13) showed that 92% of schoolgirls and 75% of school boys reported that they had never been bullied. 21% of students reported they had been bullied and 17% reported bullying others. Boulton and Underwood also found out by a peer-nomination method that over half the bullying is done by boys and one tenth by girls. 37 % of victims are girls and 30 % boys. They conducted the research over a four points in time which showed that the bullying behaviour was not a phase that school students grew out of. Boulton and Smith looked at the consequences of bullying and found that victims scored lower than non-victims on social acceptance, athletic competence and global self-worth. They found evidence that bullying preceeds low self esteem for most children. The Sheffield Project used Olweus's self report Bullying Inventory questionnaires and their findings in UK schools based on these and other methods are similar to those of Olweus's research in Scandinavian schools. This nation wide survey in 1983 was the most comprehensive ever done into the incidence of bullying. Using a 140,000 sample of pupils aged between 8 and 16, Olweus discovered that high school students self -reported that 10% of them were victims and 7% bullies. Primary school students self reported that 12% were victims and 5% bullies. Ahmed, Whitney and Smith as part of the 1991 research based at Sheffield University used questionnaires adapted from Olweus's self- reporting inventories both before and after intervention strategies in 24 schools in Sheffield with a total of 4,135 students. The interventions comprised of: whole school anti-bullying policies and a variety of optional interventions such as use of videos, drama, literature, quality circles, assertiveness training, no blame approaches, peer counselling and playground work. The research found that 27% of junior/middle school students(5-13) reported being bullied occasionally and 10% reported being bullied once or several times a week. In secondary schools(13-18) 10% were bullied occasionally and 4% at least once a week. After intervention bullying was reduced from 20% to 13% of students being pushed or kicked, from 9% to 5% being threatened and from 10% to 6% being teased. Follow up research in |Sheffield includes Whitney and Smith (1993) which exposed age and gender differences in the incidence of bullying. They found that bullying is worst during the early years at secondary school and that boys are more involved than girls and in different ways. “Towards Bully Free Schools” by Derek Glover and Netta Cartwright examines the success of anti- bullying projects in twenty five secondary schools in the Midlands. Lessons can be learnt on how some schools’ policies and practices work better than others. It is based on research at the University of Keele which surveyed 4,700 eleven to sixteen year olds. The findings present an optimistic way forward although they confirm there is still a high level of anti-social behaviour despite anti-bullying strategies. The survey revealed that three quarters of all secondary school students have been bullies and a similar number victims at least once in a year. Only 14% have been neither bully nor victim and a hard core of 7 % suffer physical bullying frequently. 20% are affected by frequent verbal abuse and 7% have their property damaged. Students suffer physical harm in the playground, teasing in corridors, and even classrooms are places of misery unless staff have good management skills. Glover and Cartwright show that pro-active management of bullying in schools can bring about an improvement despite these disturbing figures. The first step is for whole school communities to admit there is a problem and to desire change. Families and the larger community need to be involved and those schools who showed the most success integrated their anti-bullying work with social activities and the subject curriculum. For more information with an update on research, bibliography and full list of resources send for an anti- bullying pack with non-copyright material(details on the MORE INFO page). Please include a self addressed and stamped( £1.00) A4 envelope with a cheque for £10 payable to Netta Cartwright at: Netta Cartwright Peer Support Works 11, Brunswick Terrace, Stafford United Kingdom ST16 1BB