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School, not online, most likely place for bullying, study finds

Andrew Taylor

Children are twice as likely to suffer bullying at school as opposed to online or at work, according to a new study.

The survey of 1000 young people aged 14-25 also found that 23 per cent of respondents had been bullied in the past 12 months, but only half had sought help.

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Bullying ranged from spreading rumours and name-calling to physical bullying, exclusion and cyber-bullying, and often involved a combination of behaviours, according to the online poll conducted by ReachOut Australia, a mental health organisation.

Parents are the most likely source of help for young people who experience bullying, followed by friends, doctors and teachers.

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Fewer bullying victims turn to a phone helpline, online resources, youth and community centres or a religious leader.

"Some schools and teachers were able to intervene successfully; at other times, students felt that teachers were not very helpful," the study said. 

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ReachOut's chief executive Jono Nicholas said he was not surprised by the prevalence of bullying at school.

"What we need to be realistic about is any time or any place where large numbers of young people gather, you're likely to find a correlation with bullying," he said.   

He added: "It's reasonable to expect that where you've got an environment where children and young people are trying to learn and renegotiate relationships, we shouldn't assume they're going to be brilliant at it at all times. That's the reality of human behaviour."

Isabel Henry discovered this dark reality when she began year 7 at St Columba's Catholic College in Springwood.

"Kids are really vicious," she said. "They just absolutely attack you any way they can." 

For Ms Henry, it began with a mild insult from a fellow student that her involvement in a church youth group was "so lame".

The bullying soon escalated when her classmates began putting their school bags on seats so she had nowhere to sit.

"It kind of got worse from there," she said.

Ms Henry, now 20,said: "When it belittles you, it absolutely tears you apart."

Yet she did not seek help at school because "if you tell someone, you're a snitch". "It makes you worse off."

She sought help from her parents after she was tricked into going to a house to attend a party. Her father complained to the school principal, who handed out detentions and suspensions to the student bullies. 

But that exacerbated the bullying "because I'd gotten them in trouble", Ms Henry said.

She eventually moved to another school. 

Mr Nicholas said the challenge for schools, workplaces and online sites is to come up with ways to reduce the severity and likelihood of bullying.

A study of bullying released in 2016 by the University of South Australia found parents believed schools were failing children who were being bullied by taking no action or blaming the victims rather than punishing the bullies.

"Teachers mistakenly generally believe that students are most likely to come to them if bullied at school," said Ken Rigby, an adjunct professor in UniSA's school of education.

However, Mr Rigby said studies in several countries, including Australia, suggest there has been a slight decline in the prevalence of bullying in the past 20 years.

A new study authored by Mr Rigby, School perspectives on bullying and preventative strategies: An exploratory study, suggests anti-bullying policies are not adequately explained to students or parents at some schools.

But Ms Henry said stamping out child bullies was difficult. "They'll take any opportunity they can get no matter how many anti-bullying things you have in place," she said.