Nine percent of students attending higher education say they have been bullied, according to a survey.
From a group of 3,000 students at colleges and universities a little less than 300 state that they have been or are bullied.
Most of the bullying is psychic and occurs during group work or lectures. The research report carried out at the University of Agder reveals that lecturers also bully students.
– These are very serious figures, and it is very important that this is brought out in the open and taken seriously, says Leader of the Norwegian student organization, Marianne Andenæs, Khrono.
Andenæs believes it’s naïve to believe bullying ends when students enter higher education.
Compared to numbers from primary school, bullying far more commonplace in higher education. According to the pupil survey from 2016, 6.3 per cent of pupils at Norwegian elementary schools are bullied. If you only count on those who are bullied by their peers, the percentage is 4.6 percent in primary education.
More than 3,000 students in two colleges and three universities have participated in the survey.
The definition used in the survey states that: ‘bullying is repeated negative actions over time and is characterized by an uneven power relationship’.
Several of the students say they are overlooked or ostracized from social interaction. Some also experience verbal bullying.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
