Tackling homophobic bullying at school

Peer mentoring has been proven to reduce bullying by 43 per cent. The key is listening to young people and giving them the tools to tackle the problem themselves  
Richard Piggin, spokesperson for Beat Bullying

Meet Madrainbowgirl

Madrainbowgirl, as she calls herself on YouTube, was 12 years old when she admitted to a close friend she was gay. The news spread around her school sparking three years of bullying, which included verbal taunts, social isolation, being pushed downstairs and spat on.

“The bullying was pretty intensive. I had the usual name calling going down the corridor… I had things thrown at me,” she says. “It really tortured me. I can’t count how many lessons I’ve spent sitting on my own because of it.”

She found teachers unwilling to step in and help, possibly because they were scared, and she herself became too scared to ask for help. “In my experience, the teachers really didn’t want to know. They were too scared to intervene. If it was something on the grounds of race or religion then they would generally step in but I found that in this circumstance they weren’t prepared to.”

She’s aware of Stonewall’s recent School Report, which found that almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of young lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils have experienced direct bullying. Less than 23 per cent of young gay people have been told that homophobic bullying is wrong in their school. Yet in schools that have said homophobic bullying is wrong, gay young people are 60 per cent more likely not to have been bullied.
 
“I think there should be more education in high schools about homophobia, to try and change people’s attitudes,” she says. “We seem to think there are more liberal views but in the narrow minds of some schoolchildren it’s not happening.”

Remarkably, Madrainbowgirl says all this in a personal on-camera sharing of her experiences.

It doesn’t take much of a journey around the web to understand that homophobic bullying is a big issue for many young people.

It doesn’t just affect those pupils who are gay, but pupils who are perceived to be gay and those with gay family members. It reinforces stereotypes and leads to other sexist behaviour.

Bullying takes many forms

Bullying of all sorts is a widespread problem and homophobic bullying is just one form that it takes. However, homophobic bullying is less likely to be reported and it’s also suffered by people who were, until recently, uniquely singled out in law.

“We’re still dealing with the festering legacy of Section 28, which gagged homosexuality in schools and led to confusion over what teachers could and couldn’t say,” says Gary Nunn, communications officer at Stonewall. “There’s been no equivalent of that law for any other sector.”

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 stated that local authorities ‘shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality’ or ‘promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.

The law was only repealed in 2003 and since then organisations such as Stonewall, Schools Out and many others have been working hard to undo the damage caused by attaching such a stigma to young people who may be lesbian or gay. In fact, as Stonewall points out, schools have a legal obligation to prevent all forms of bullying, including homophobic bullying, and to provide a safe learning environment for all pupils and staff.

This isn’t as straightforward in practice as it is writing it. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) reported this year that half of all teachers do not challenge homophobic language when they hear it.

“The reasons for this are varied, but combined they contribute to a wide-ranging conspiracy of silence,” it says. “As a result, homophobia remains a pervasive and persistent problem within our society, including in our schools and colleges.”

Some of the key to the problem lies in training teachers and instilling confidence that they can act to deal with bullying, and specifically homophobic bullying. The ATL last year reported that of its members in Wales, ‘98 per cent surveyed had not been offered training on dealing with issues of homophobia in the classroom, and 96 per cent of members surveyed were not aware of a specific anti-homophobic bullying policy at their school or college.’

Initiatives to tackle abusive behaviour

There have been positive moves in this area, with the government recently launching guidelines, drawn up by Stonewall and Education Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH), to help tackle homophobia in schools. These can be downloaded as a hefty PDF booklet from its TeacherNet website (see panel below). 

The detailed guidelines explain what homophobic bullying is, how to recognise it, offer advice on how to respond to it and encourages schools to implement prevention measures –  for example, ensuring that homophobic bullying is specifically included in a school’s anti-bullying policy and that homophobia is dealt with in a wider school context.

Much of what’s needed, and which is pointed out in the guidelines, is the need to create a culture that’s generally more inclusive and accepting of everyone. That means challenging homophobic language, promoting gay role models, talking about different relationships in sex education classes and making it safe and okay to be an openly gay teacher.

Anti-bullying policies

In the first instance, schools need to insure that homophobic bullying is recognised in their anti-bullying policies. Many schools, state and public, have drawn up anti-bullying policies often taking wording from guidance such as that provided by Stonewall (which is available to schools via the web and their local authorities).

Stowe School near Buckingham states its anti-bullying policy in its Handbook for Parents:

‘Stowe does not tolerate bullying, and this policy is a central part of the school’s pastoral provision. All members of the school community are expected to base their behaviour on respect for others, regardless of differences of age, status, physical ability, race or sex.
Bullying is always an abuse of power and cannot be allowed to continue. In extreme cases, it may be punished by suspension, or ultimately, expulsion.’

Independent schools aren’t regulated by local authorities but they are inspected by Ofsted-regulated inspectors who, according to Stonewall, are taking increasing notice of bullying motivated by prejudice and taking account of what measures are being employed by that school.
Bullying UK also has a page for the parents of bullied children at independent and private schools, explaining where they can turn for help.

Some schools have adopted more progressive anti-bullying measures; for example, a number of London schools have been working with Beat Bullying to set up bully prevention workshops and peer mentoring schemes.

Peers can help

“Peer mentoring has been proven to reduce bullying by 43 per cent,” says Richard Piggin at Beat Bullying. “The key is listening to young people and giving them the tools to tackle the problem themselves. They know the solutions; they just need a push and the support to implement them.”

The mentoring programme begins with a bully prevention workshop where the issues surrounding bullying are discussed and pupils can raise problems that are relevant to them and their school. Listening is important because the organisation has found that different schools have different issues so it’s important to sit down and talk to find out what the problems are, whether they’re inter-racial, gang related or sexually motivated.

“Homophobic bullying comes up time and time again. We deal with it as part of the wider problem of bullying,” says Piggin.

Mentors are volunteers, or candidates selected by their peers, in the 14 to 16 age group who are identified to the school population. They can be approached in complete confidentiality at set times throughout the week. This approach has shown that many instances of bullying can be solved without a teacher even having to intervene, offering a ray of hope for young people suffering misery through their school years.

Kevin Brennan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families, summed up bullying in a speech last year when he said: ‘Bullying is not simply part of growing up. Shame, indignity and humiliation at school is something that no young person should have to put up with."

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