An Analysis of Trends and Patterns in School Anti-Bullying Policies : A quantitative content analysis comparing private international schools and community secondary schools in London, England 

Sammanfattning: Anti-bullying policies are effective in reducing bullying victimization in secondary schools when they are written precisely, have a clear description of what bullying entails and how the school responds, and maintains a high priority through regular updating. Research on anti-bullying policies in the United Kingdom is not very extensive and has thus far only been done qualitatively. This research aims to utilize an in-depth content analysis to investigate trends and patterns within secondary schools anti-bullying policies in London, England. The purpose of this research is also to find preliminary results of the difference between public community schools and international schools. The documents are coded and counted systematically per keyword of each definition and then compared and averaged. The data was then analysed using descriptive statistics and compared by other school and policy characteristics, such as location of the school, the Ofsted educational inspectorate rating, the number of pages of the policy and when the policy was last updated. The findings of this research indicate that there is an underrepresentation of aspects of relational bullying, weight-based bullying, and the role of bystanders as stated in the policies. The main focuses in the selected policies are on the responsibility of school staff and parents, a reporting system and updating of the policy. This implies that anti-bullying policies should be improved further to include relational bullying, weight-based bullying, and the role of bystanders more. This study contributes to the field of International and Comparative Education by filling a research gap in the investigation of anti-bullying policies in England and providing an updated and quantitative insight into the status of these policies. This research also adds to the field by examining differences between community schools and international schools and comparing various school and policy characteristics, contributing to the understanding of how bullying is addressed by different types of schools.