York St John research on Bullying in School Sport

The report, undertaken by York St John University and funded by the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation, also highlights a lack of interventions specific to sporting environments  to tackle the problem. The sporting environment is atypical in that it is the one environment where young people are in potentially vulnerable situations in the changing room and showers which may lack  adult supervision and playing physically competitive games where rules of engagement are different than in the classroom.

Nathalie Noret, Director of the Unit for Child and Youth Studies at York St John University and co-author of the report, commented: “The Bullying in School Sport report considers incidents of bullying in school sport and found that bullying was common for pupils at both primary and secondary school. Incidents included homophobic and racist language occurring in changing rooms, as well as on school fields, and some were targeted because of sporting ability, weight, size and/or body shape.”

Following on from the report, York St John University and the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation are planning to develop interventions to tackle  bullying in school sport.