Since a child’s social world revolves around school and it’s the place where most of a child’s peer interactions take place, school is also where most bullying originates from. Here are some alarming statistics about bullying at school:

School bullying statistic #1: A sample of 15,686 students at public schools in grades 6 through 10 found that 10.6% reported bullying “sometimes” and another 8.8% admitted to bullying others once a week or more. A similar frequency was found among those bullied, with 8.5% admitting to being bullied “sometimes” and 8.4% being bullied once a week or more. Based on these numbers, they determined that nationwide, an estimated 2,027,254 youth are involved in moderate bullying, and another 1,681,030 engage in frequent bullying. On the opposite end, at least 1, 634,095 students are bullied with moderate frequency, and another 1,611,809 are bullied at least weekly. An estimated 5,736,417 youths reported both bullying others and being bullied themselves. (Nansel et al., 2001) These are likely conservative estimates, as other surveys have produced higher percentages of involved students. Either way, it is clear that bullying in our schools is a major social problem impacting millions of students.

School bullying statistic #2: A study in the Journal of School Health found that 19% of U.S. elementary school students are bullied. (Colino, 2010)

School bullying statistic #3: A recent study prepared for the American Psychological Association found that an alarming 80% of middle school students admitted to bullying behavior in the prior 30 days. (Turley, 2008)

School bullying statistic #4: A different middle school survey turned up much lower numbers, but still found that 24.1% of youth had admitted to bullying others at least once in the past semester. (Haynle et al., 2001)

School bullying statistic #5: A National Center for Education Statistics survey found that 20% of sixth through twelfth-grade kids say they try to stay in a group as a strategy to avoid harm or harassment while they are at school. This is more common at public schools than private ones. (Chandler, Nolin & Davies, 1995)

School bullying statistic #6: Other data by the National Center for Education Statistics, released in 2007, showed that nearly a third of students (32% overall) in middle and high school reported having been bullied at school. (Hall, 2011)

School bullying statistic #7: A different survey of 43,000 high school students conducted in 2010 by the Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics found that 47% had been bullied, teased or taunted at school, and that 50% had been bullies themselves. (Cloud, 2012)

Statistics On Bullying by Teachers & Teacher Intervention

School bullying statistic #8: One survey found that among teachers, 25% see nothing wrong with bullying or putdowns and consequently intervene in only 4% of bullying incidents. (National Mental Health & Education Center; Seale, 2004)

School bullying statistic #9: A Kidscape survey of 1,000 adults found that 2% reported being bullied by teachers when they were in school – this despite the fact that the survey did not even specifically ask about bullying by a teacher. (Kidscape, 1999)