A nationwide programme to prevent and manage bullying in Irish schools, based on that implemented in Norway in 1996, is currently being developed, and pilot work with a sample of primary schools within a single county of Ireland has been conducted and evaluated (the staff and pupils of 42 primary schools having been involved). A network of professionals (11 teachers) were trained to co-ordinate the antibullying programme in the schools, subsequent activities involving their training teachers (a total of 197) and parents in three to five schools each. In evaluation, pupils from 22 of the schools completed modified versions of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire [Olweus, 1989;Whitney and Smith, 1993]. Teachers completed a questionnaire (concerning their knowledge and feelings about bullying [Rigby, 1997]) both before and after the implementation of the anti-bullying training programme. Significant reductions were found in pupils' reports of having been victimised after the implementation of the programme. Overall, 19.6 per cent fewer children were victimised. There was a reduction of 50.0 per cent amongst those frequently victimised within the last school term, and of 43.0 per cent in reports of having been bullied within the last five school days. A reduction of 17.3 per cent in pupils' reports of having taken part in bullying others was also observed after the implementation of the programme. There were, in particular, significant reductions (69.2 per cent) in reports of frequently bullying others within the last school term, and of 51.8 per cent in reports of having taken part in bullying others within the last five school days. Whilst the programme was shown to reduce the incidence of pupils' involvement in bullying behaviour, the perennial challenge of attempting to increase the levels of pupils' reporting of bullying to teachers and parents remains a challenge for the authors to attend to in the further development of the nationwide anti-bullying programme. Aggr. Behav. 31:609-622, 2005.

An exploratory survey of the experiences of homophobic bullying among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered young people in Ireland, Irish Educational Studies, 27:2,[177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191] While developments have been made concerning the understanding of general bullying behaviour in Irish schools, considerably less is known about homophobic bullying. Presented here are the findings of a study into the views and perspectives of a self-selected sample of 123 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT) secondary school-aged young people in Ireland. Findings highlight the extent to which such students experience name calling, teasing and bullying in their everyday lives. While exploratory in nature, the study indicates (i) the LGBT population is one 'at risk' of school bullying; (ii) homophobic bullying should be included as a matter of concern in pre-service and in-service teacher training; (iii) that homophobic bullying should be explicitly considered in school anti-bullying policy. Furthermore, from a consideration of the current level of expertise, there are grounds for optimism regarding the development of an inter-agency approach to providing resources and addressing curriculum development in this area in schools in Ireland.

No abstract

Enhancing the well-being of primary and post-primary students is one of the priorities of the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland. Whilst interventions are being implemented across the board, little is known about the current levels of adolescents' well-being. Drawing from research on positive education, in the current study well-being was assessed amongst 2822 adolescents, aged 12-19 in Ireland, using the PERMA profiler [

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -''Alterophobia'', which refers to prejudice directed towards members of ''alternative'' sub-cultures, has been manifest in criminal cases such as the murder of Sophie Lancaster in 2007 (UK). The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether alterophobia is also evident in patterns of school bullying behaviour. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 820 fifth-year students (16-17 years old; 339 male (41.3 per cent), 481 female (58.7 per cent), at nine secondary schools in Ireland, were asked to respond to a short, specifically constructed questionnaire, concerning membership of groups and sub-cultures, and bullying behaviour.