Response to interpellation 2024/25:112 on bullying in schools
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L considers all forms of harassment and violence in school to be unacceptable and that a safe school environment is a prerequisite for learning. L argues that the government has taken measures by giving principals the opportunity to establish emergency schools and by appointing an investigator to systematically improve safety. 1 L emphasizes that school is a municipal matter but that the government proposes state grants for staff reinforcements 1. 2 L considers that the adult world has a responsibility to stop bullying and that teachers and principals need the authority to act without being affected by bureaucracy 2. 3 L considers that it is not self-evident that all schools follow the school act's mandate to prevent bullying, harassment, threats, and violence 3. 3 L argues that the school needs more concrete tools to act and that plans must be followed up and be able to be used when bullying occurs 3. 3 L is convinced that more opportunities for intervention measures from the schools' side are needed and that leadership is important to solve the problem 3. 3 L considers that bullying should be seen from the victim's perspective and that every day that passes for these students is a lost day 3.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Mats Wiking has asked me what I and the government will do to stop bullying in schools.
First and foremost, I want to emphasize that all forms of harassment, threats, and violence in school are, of course, completely unacceptable. All students should be able to feel safe in school.
Fear and insecurity negatively affect both the students' well-being and the conditions for learning. A safe school environment is a prerequisite for students to be able to concentrate in school. Unfortunately, the proportion of students who feel safe in school has decreased over time, especially in upper secondary school. Parallel to that development, bullying is increasing. It is an unacceptable development, and it is obvious that action needs to be taken to reverse it.
The government has decided on several different measures to create a safer school environment for all students. Not least, it is about giving teachers and principals better conditions to be able to act in cases of violations, threats, and harassment. For example, the government has made investments that have increased the conditions for principals to establish so-called emergency schools, where students can be placed temporarily when less intrusive measures have not been sufficient. The intention with such a placement is to create a better school situation both for the student who needs the temporary placement and for the other students and staff at the student's regular school unit.
Furthermore, the government decided in November 2023 that a special investigator shall propose measures to permanently improve safety and the study environment in schools (dir. 2023:154). The assignment includes, among other things, proposing measures that ensure a zero-tolerance policy prevails against all forms of harassment and offensive treatment, including bullying, in the compulsory school forms, the upper secondary school, and the adapted upper secondary school. It also includes proposing measures so that the schools' work against bullying, harassment, and offensive treatment, including the preventive work, shall rest on a more systematic basis of scientific foundation and proven experience. The investigation shall also propose how an obligation can be introduced for the principal to move students as a disciplinary measure when it is necessary with regard to other students' safety and study environment. The assignment shall be reported by January 31, 2025, at the latest (dir. 2024:79).
Parallelly, the school naturally also needs to have better conditions to meet every student. Being able to implement the right support measures in time is an important part of the work to long-term strengthen safety and study environments. Therefore, the government is making, among other things, large investments in more special education teachers and more special teaching groups. To, among other things, strengthen the schools' conditions to increase safety and study environments in school, relieve teachers, improve student health, and better meet the students' needs for support, the government also proposes a collective state grant for staff reinforcements in school in the budget bill for 2025. The government proposes that the total state grant be reinforced with 850 million kronor for 2025.
Schools must be a safe place for students, teachers, and other staff within the school system. Violations, threats, and violence in schools must never be accepted. Therefore, Sweden's schools must be given better conditions to handle and counteract offensive treatment and harassment, including bullying. I look forward to receiving the report from the investigation Strengthened safety and study environment in schools.
Mats Wiking (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. The Friends Report 2024, on which my interpellation is based, is based on a Novus survey conducted during the spring of 2024, with over 1,100 children aged 10-16 years. The report shows that every second child in school has been subjected to bullying or offensive treatment in the last two months. That is half of all children who attend a class.
I quote Maja Frankel from the report: "If you think back to your class, you surely remember a child or several who were alone. Perhaps they were teased or subjected to bullying. I believe you remember their names, see their faces before you. Maybe it was you?"
Today, it is not one or a couple of children who are left out. Behind every other school desk sits a child who has had to endure harsh words, bullying, spreading of rumors, harassment, racism, or kicks and blows. Some on a single occasion, others repeatedly day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year.
That is where we stand right now in Sweden. That is what "Every other child has been subjected to bullying or harassment" means.
Mr. Speaker! Behind the statistics and figures are living children who once longed to start school but who today have a lump in their stomachs every day they are to go to school. They are children who say that everything is fine when they are asked how it is going in school. They are children who are ashamed of being subjected to bullying and who therefore do not tell their parents or any other adult.
We adults would never accept that it looked like this in an adult's workplace. The school is the children's workplace. One big difference is that the child cannot resign or ignore the school obligation. What one can do is stay home from school. Over half of the children who are bullied stay home from school because they feel unsafe or lonely.
Mr. Speaker! At the same time, the Minister argues in his response that the government is on the right track when certain targeted investments are made in schools. That is not the same signal that we Social Democrats receive when we have contact with schools across the country. There, savings in municipalities instead result in fewer adults in schools and less money to work preventatively against bullying and harassment.
My question to the Minister is:
What will the government do, in addition to providing targeted government grants, to create a safe school so that no student has to stay home because of bullying?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I am very pleased that Mats Wiking is raising this issue. It is large and important. Just as Mats Wiking says, there are very many children in Sweden who are exposed to bullying and harassment. I believe it is very good that the issue is being properly raised. I think that these problems have been swept under the carpet in Swedish schools for far too long. This has not been taken seriously enough. Many children who feel a strong insecurity have not been taken seriously by the adult world.
We can, of course, not speak here from the rostrum of the Riksdag about exactly how it should be done. But just the fact that we are talking about it sends a strong signal that these are very serious issues.
I also believe that a cultural change is required in Swedish schools. We must begin to see these problems from the perspective of the crime victim, because it is about the crime victim. We must see that the behaviors that we accept today in the school world, we would never accept in another workplace. We must see that there are victims, and the victim's perspective must always be the most important.
It has not always been that way. We have had tendencies in Swedish schools to feel sorry for the one who bullies. We have explained away why a person bullies, and I mean that we must move away from this.
Just as Mats Wiking says, it is obviously important to have resources in schools. We need to make staffing reinforcements, and now there are also increases in state grants for this. Primarily, however, school is a municipal issue and is about municipal priorities, even though we naturally must also ensure that there are state grants.
I am very much looking forward to the investigation that will be presented within a few months, which concerns exactly these issues and about safety and study environment in general. An environment can be very noisy and perceived as unsafe without children being subjected to bullying, even though these issues naturally are connected. The investigator shall submit proposals for a number of different measures to ensure that the situation is improved.
I am glad that Mats Wiking is raising this important issue, because it benefits from being discussed and not swept under the carpet.
Mats Wiking (S)
Mr. Speaker! I want to raise the issue here in the rostrum in order that it shall not be forgotten. Then one can discuss how resources are distributed to the municipalities.
This is how a student who has been bullied in school expresses themselves: I have not been in a regular class for two years. I go in a small group for one hour a day because I cannot be in the class. I have social phobia and anxiety and am afraid of meeting the bullies. I was in a rowdy class.
Friends' survey shows that among children who are subjected to bullying, it is twice as common to receive a failing grade in one of the school's core subjects. Seven out of ten of the children who answered that it did not go so well on the tests and lessons have been subjected to harassment or bullying, which can be compared with three out of ten among those who have not been subjected.
Robert Thornberg, a researcher at Linköping University, shows in a study that if a student is subjected to bullying, the risk of school absence increases, which in turn can lead to poorer performance in schoolwork. The study also shows that loneliness and absence of friends is a very strong risk factor for failing grades in core subjects. This also confirms international research which shows that friendship, that is, having at least one friend in school, strengthens children's ability to learn.
It is unfortunately a dark picture, Mr. Speaker, of the consequences that occur for the individual child who is bullied. Loneliness, mental ill-health, and failing grades are some of the consequences of the school and society, including we politicians, not handling the issue well enough today.
Mr. Speaker! At the same time, there is research that shows positive results and a way forward. Robert Thornberg points out what is successful in the work against bullying. He emphasizes a leadership where teachers can create positive, warm, and supportive relationships with the students while simultaneously being clear adults who, together with the students, set boundaries. A warm and empathetic leadership works protectively against being subjected to bullying. The opposite of this is negative relationships characterized by power struggles, detachment, constant conflicts, and a lack of warmth.
Safety and study environment are incredibly important, but as has been said, it is about having a positive relationship between teachers and students so that the students feel seen by the adults in the school.
The consequences of poor supervision and that we do not see the students in school is that students perform worse in school and risk becoming involved in bullying, either as the victim or as the one who bullies others.
I would therefore like to ask the Minister: What conclusions does the Minister draw from the research showing that there is a clear link between receiving a failing grade while being subjected to bullying in school? What is the Minister's opinion on the researcher's description that warm and empathetic relationships between teachers and students counteract bullying in school?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Poorer academic results and students simply being afraid to go to school and thus becoming stay-at-home students is, of course, another dimension of bullying. The problem is not solely the bullying itself, but it always risks having much more far-reaching consequences for the students who are affected. I am completely convinced that Mats Wiking and the report from Friends are right that there is a strong correlation in this regard.
Leadership is crucial in all schools, both the principal's leadership and the teachers' leadership in the classroom, corridors, and so on. A long time ago, when I was a school board member in Stockholm, we also conducted this type of survey, and what hit me hardest was when the question was asked why the bullying did not stop. The most common answer from the students themselves was that the adult world turned away, that is to say that the adult world chose not to see the bullying even though it was happening right before their eyes.
It is completely unacceptable, because it is the adults' responsibility to put a stop to bullying. One cannot believe that the students themselves are to achieve this. There have been those types of methods where students have been used for this, and I mean partly that those methods lack scientific value, and partly that it is completely unreasonable to place on children and young people to manage this themselves. It is the adults' responsibility to ensure that it does not occur.
I also mean that it is unacceptable that we are still forcing students to stay at home because they are afraid and/or that the victim is forced to change schools, which still occurs. If anyone is to change schools, it is the one who subjects others to bullying, not the one who is subjected to it.
With that said, I believe, just as Mats Wiking does, that leadership in the school is absolutely crucial. But then teachers and principals must also have the authority to do something without, for example, being hit by reports and an enormous bureaucracy every time one, for example, takes disciplinary measures.
Mats Wiking (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the answer!
The legislation is quite clear. According to the Education Act and the Discrimination Act, schools are obliged to work preventatively against all forms of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. That law is not new, so to speak.
In Chapter 6 of the Education Act, it is described that all students have the right to a safe school environment, free from offensive treatment and bullying. Every school shall annually establish a plan against offensive treatment, where the school shall describe the preventive measures that the school shall take.
The Education Act is clear that every form of bullying or offensive treatment is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, and further describes that if a school does not follow the law, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate can intervene and issue sanctions.
When one reads the Friends report, which describes that every second child is bullied or harassed, it is difficult to see that Sweden's schools and municipalities are following the legislation. One can wonder if the Skolinspektionen is truly carrying out its mandate.
Does the Government think that Sweden's schools follow the Education Act when it comes to bullying and harassment? Does the Government think that the Swedish Schools Inspectorate fulfills its mandate?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I do not think it is self-evident that all schools today follow the mandate that exists in the Education Act to prevent bullying, harassment, threats, and violence. If they did, the situation would not look the way it does today.
With that said, the school needs more practical tools to act in these matters. There is a great focus on ensuring that there are detailed plans for one thing or the other, but it is also a matter of the plans being followed up and can be used when bullying occurs. It should not be an excuse when bullying arises that there was a plan. That cannot be the case. The purpose of the entire work is that bullying should not occur and that there is an obligation to act when it does.
I am convinced that more opportunities for intervention measures from the schools are needed to address the problem. I am also convinced that leadership is important to address the problem.
We must face the problems and not sweep them under the rug. We must see the bullying from the victim's perspective, not from the perpetrator's perspective. Then we can go far. Every day that passes for these students is a lost day, and that is not acceptable.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.