4 November 2011

Anglia Ruskin University publishes research on bullying during the school journey

‘The land in-between’ is the first cross-European study examining the experiences and perceptions of crime, bullying and anti-social behaviour of young people during their journey between school and home. The research, produced by Stephen Moore and Rachel MacLean at Anglia Ruskin University, is a two-year study which collected information from over 4,000 school pupils aged 12-16 in eight European countries. The study discovered that more pupils in England were worried about being the victim of bullying or crime, compared to pupils across Europe as a whole.

Anglia Ruskin’s research sampled 855 children in the East of England, from a mixture of rural and urban schools, and found that 17% ‘sometimes’ experienced victimisation on their way to and from school and 4% often or always experienced victimisation incidents, results which were similar to the European average.

Stephen Moore, Reader in Social Policy at Anglia Ruskin, said: “The figure of 4% of children often or always experiencing incidents may seem small but it represents tens of thousands of young people across the country. “The primary threat to personal safety comes from other pupils generally from the same school, and whilst incidents may be regarded as ‘low impact’ in terms of objective levels of harm – name-calling was much more common than violence – these low impact incidents can potentially have a significant effect on the emotional wellbeing of young people.”

The full report, titled ‘The land in-between’: A comparative European study of the victimisation of young people travelling to and from school, is published in Crime Prevention and Community Safety Journal (Vol. 13, No 4, 2011). The study was funded by the European Commission and the research was carried out in England, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Portugal, Holland and Italy.