Verbal abuse the biggest bullying problem at school: Students
StatsChat is involved with the biennial CensusAtSchool / TataurangaKiTeKura, a national statistics education project for primary and secondary school students. Supervised by teachers, students aged between 9 and 18 (Year 5 to Year 13) answer 35 questions in English or te reo Māori about their lives, then analyse the results in class. Already, more than 18,392 students from 391 schools all over New Zealand have taken part.
This year, for the first time, CAS asked students about bullying, a persistent problem in New Zealand schools.
School students think verbal mistreatment is the biggest bullying issue in schools – higher than cyberbullying, social or relational bullying such as social exclusion and spreading gossip, or physical bullying.
Students were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with statements about each type of bullying. A total of 36% strongly agreed or agreed that verbal bullying was a problem among students at their school, followed by cyberbullying (31% agreed or strongly agreed), social or relational bullying (25% agreed or strongly agreed) and physical bullying (19% agreed or strongly agreed).
Read the rest of the press release here.
Atakohu Middleton is an Auckland journalist with a keen interest in the way the media uses/abuses data. She happens to be married to a statistician. See all posts by Atakohu Middleton »