Who gets bullied? The effect of school, gender and ethnic group

Summary A total of 1,139 secondary school pupils from two outer London schools and one Glasgow school completed a questionnaire concerned with their perception of what bullying is and their own experience of it, both as bullies and as victims. Significant differences were found for schools relating both to the perception and experience of bullying. Significant sex differences were also found, with boys experiencing more bullying both as perpetrators and as victims than girls. Contrary to expectation, there were no consistent statistically significant differences between the ethnic groups in either the experience or the perception of bullying though considerably, and significantly, more ethnic minority pupils believed ethnic minority pupils to be more likely than majority pupils to experience bullying. These findings are discussed with reference to the phenomenology of the bullying experience.