Roma and Travellers are facing racist bullying in secondary schools, with many institutions not only failing to record incidents as anti-Gypsyism, but also neglecting to address or resolve them for the children involved.
New research from The Traveller Movement found that 40 percent of young Roma and Travellers in London had experienced bullying. Of these, 67 percent said they had experienced bullying from teachers that they felt was directly linked to their ethnicity. Of these, 45 percent of girls and 29 percent of boys said it was a contributing factor in leaving school early.
The study also found that there had been a “growing trend in zero-tolerance policies in English schools”. It added: “While zero-tolerance approaches appear to enforce a level of compliance, fundamentally they fail to address any underlying issues. Research has also shown that behavioural policies that fail to take into consideration the behavioural and cultural norms of different ethnic groups can lead to some in those groups being labelled as disruptive and aggressive.”
