In Brazil, four in ten teenagers face school bullying
In Brazil, four out of ten students aged 13 to 17 say they have already been
victims of bullying, and 27.2 percent in this age group have suffered some
form of humiliation two or more times.
The data, released this week, are based on testimonies collected in 2024
in schools across Brazil by the Brazilian government’s statistics agency
IBGE as part of the National School Health Survey (PeNSE).
Compared to the previous survey, conducted in 2019, there was a 0.7
percentage point increase in the total number of students who reported
having suffered bullying. The proportion of students who experienced it at
least twice rose by more than 4 percentage points, Marco Andreazzi, the
research manager, emphasized.
“Bullying is already characterized as something persistent, intermittent…
And here we observe an upward trend, indicating that more students have
begun to experience repeated situations of violence,” Andreazzi said.
The researcher stressed that “the number of those who suffer bullying
remains practically the same; however, the persistence and intensity of the
episodes have increased.”
Appearance, race, gender
Bullied students told researchers that their facial features or hair were the
main targets of bullying, accounting for 30.2 percent of cases.
Next is body appearance, accounting for 24.7 percent, followed by bullying
related to color or race, reported by 10.6 percent.
“There is also a high percentage - 26.3 percent - of students who say the
bullying had no reason. That is, many of those who suffer do not know
why, and this is natural, since bullying occurs collectively and the victim
does not necessarily perceive a reason for it. On the contrary, they feel
completely wronged,” the research manager noted.
The research found that girls are the most affected - 43.3 percent have
experienced bullying, compared to 37.3 percent of boys.
Furthermore, 30.1 percent of female adolescent students reported feeling
humiliated by teasing from classmates two or more times. This proportion
is nearly 6 percentage points higher than among male students.
Profile of the aggressors
Data on those who commit bullying show an inverse pattern: 13.7 percent
of students reported having engaged in some form of violence - 16.5
percent of boys and 10.9 percent of girls.
IBGE also asked about the reasons for the aggression, and once again,
facial features, hair, body type, and skin color or race were the most
frequently cited.
However, some significant differences emerged in relation to victims’
reports. For example, 12.1 percent of perpetrators said they engaged in
bullying because of their classmates’ gender or sexual orientation, while
only 6.4 percent of victims identified this as a motive for the violence.
A similar pattern emerged regarding disability: while 7.6 percent of
perpetrators acknowledged engaging in bullying for this reason, only 2.6
percent of victims associated the attacks with this characteristic.
For researchers, this may indicate that many victims prefer to remain silent
about the circumstances for fear of being stigmatized.