Safe Schools are Effective Schools

Homophobic Bullying

All students in Victorian government schools have a right to feel safe at school and be free from bullying, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex students.

Indications of the extent of homophobic bullying in schools can be gained from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society’s report on the sexual health and wellbeing of same sex attracted young people in Australia, ‘Writing Themselves in Again’ (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ssay/publications.html). This report found that the most common place of homophobic abuse was at school. 74% of young people who had suffered homophobic abuse reported at least one incident of verbal or physical abuse at school.

Preventing Incidents

To prevent incidents of homophobic bullying, schools should take a whole-school approach according to the Department’s safe schools strategy.

Schools should have high expectations of their students and staff. Safe and effective schools clearly communicate to all members of the school community that everybody has the right to feel physically and psychologically safe at school. Safe and effective schools ensure that the school environment remains safe.

The most important thing teachers can do is create and continually model a school environment that respects and celebrates diversity. 

To promote a whole-school environment that is inclusive of the needs of same-sex-attracted and transgender students is to ensure that incidents of homophobic bullying are kept to a minimum. Inclusivity should be reflected in a school’s curriculum, teaching and learning, organisation and ethos, and community links and partnerships.

Intervening in Incidents

Homophobic bullying should be dealt with in the same way as any bullying situation, including racist or sexist behaviour.

It is important, however, to acknowledge that the behaviour is homophobic, and respond to it accordingly. A teacher can:

  • state that they find the comments or actions offensive
  • ask the student if they know why the teacher has found their statement offensive
  • ask the student to consider the statement in light of agreed school rules around discriminatory language, and the feelings of the student who they have been bullying
  • agree to a management strategy, as set out in, the school’s Student Code of Conduct.

Due to the sensitivity around issues of teenage sexuality, the utmost care should be given to the most appropriate strategies to manage the situation.  The student who is being bullied should be consulted about how they would like the situation to be managed. However, the teacher or school leader should take responsibility for the situation and follow-up the incident at a later date.

Ollis, Debbie, Mitchell, Anne, Watson, Jan, Hillier, Lynne & Walsh, Jenny, Safety in our Schools: Strategies for responding to homophobia. Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University,  Melbourne.