Compared with five years ago, ‘[gay] pupils in faith schools are now no more likely to report bullying than those in non-faith schools, even though faith schools are still less likely than schools in general to take steps to prevent and respond to homophobic bullying.’
These are two of the key findings from The School Report: The Experiences of Gay Young People in Britain’s Schools in 2012, written by April Guasp and published by Stonewall (the lobbying organization for gays) on 5 July. It can be downloaded from:
http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/school_report_2012.pdf
The report is based upon an online survey completed, between November 2011 and February 2012, by 1,614 young Britons (aged 11-19) who were lesbian, gay or bisexual (or thought they might be) on their experiences in secondary schools and colleges.
The survey was conducted and analysed by Helen Statham, Vasanti Jadva and Irenee Daly of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. 29% of respondents said they had a religious belief, and 11% attended a faith school.
The results comparing faith schools with all schools have been extracted by BRIN from the report and are tabulated below:
| Faith schools | All schools | |
| The school says that homophobic bullying is wrong |
37% |
50% |
| The school responds quickly to homophobic bullying |
24% |
31% |
| Teachers who hear homophobic language never challenge it |
36% |
26% |
| Teachers and other staff make homophobic comments |
22% |
17% |
Faith schools, therefore, still have some way to go to close the gap on other schools in their handling of homophobia, if these data are fully representative (unfortunately, the section on the survey methodology is extremely brief, but the sample will, presumably, have been self-selecting in large part).
