One of the less attractive characteristics of adolescents is their capacity for clannishness and inflicting verbal pain on those whom they perceive to be different. Individuals so judged - too thin or too fat, too tall or too small, too this or too that, it does not really matter to the dynamic at play - are frequently targeted by groups of their peers for no good reason.
More often than not, such behaviour inflicts little long-term damage and can be absorbed by the recipient and shrugged off. An arrogant or boorish youth will be a better adult if he or she is taken down a peg or two before too many years have passed. Equally, a well-balanced young person with a core of self-confidence will gain a useful tool in their armoury for life if they develop the capacity to absorb a few slings and arrows and carry on regardless. But some slights should not be brushed aside as essentially unimportant.
Today, the Department of Education will publish the results of a three-year study which it funded and which was carried out by Dublin City University's Centre for Educational Evaluation. The study, Straight Talk - Researching Gay and Lesbian Issue in the School Curriculum, details of which are published in today's edition, involved a survey of 364 social and physical education teachers and an examination of the prevalence of homophobia in secondary schools. Strong empirical evidence now exists to support what observant parents will have suspected from hearing their own children and their friends use words like "gay" and "lesbian", or variations thereof, in derogatory and abusive contexts.
The survey found that 80 per cent of teachers were aware of pupils involved in verbal bullying using homophobic terminology. Some 16 per cent cited instances of physical bullying. Dealing with the problem is also an issue. Only 10 per cent of schools surveyed included homophobia in their bullying policy; 41 per cent of teachers found it more difficult to deal with homophobic bullying in their school than other types of bullying; and, when asked if their school was to attempt to extend its work on lesbian and gay issues, 57 per cent of teachers overall said that they believed such a development would be hindered.
It is hardly surprising that the ethos of the majority church, which is strongly and vocally opposed to homosexuality, infuses the schools in which it has an interest with the same message. But the business of educators, who are paid by a State that is dedicated increasingly to equality, is to enlighten and thereby increase tolerance, not the opposite. This survey underlines a tension that can only increase until it is resolved.