Bullying behaviour in Irish schools: A nationwide study

Abstract

Most of our knowledge of bullying behaviour in Irish schools has been gained from empirical studies carried out in Dublin (Byrne, 1994a; O’Moore & Hillery, 1989). The present paper, reports results from the first nationwide study of bullying behaviour in primary and post-primary schools in Ireland carried out during 1993–94. The results presented include data on the incidence of being bullied and bullying others, year differences, gender differences, types of bullying, where bullying occurs, whether teachers or parents are aware and pupils attitudes to bullying. Some correlations of bullying are also examined, in particular school size, class size, ability groupings and the social composition of school. Finally implications for intervention against bullying are discussed.