title: Educating for diversity: an evaluation of a sexuality diversity workshop to address secondary school bullying.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the potential of a 60-minute sexuality diversity workshop to address bullying in secondary schools.
  
  
  METHODS
  Students completed pre- and post-workshop questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise results with pre- to immediate post-workshop changes compared using t-tests. Thematic analysis was used to analyse open-ended questionnaire responses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We had 229 students (mean age 13.7 years) attending 10 workshops participate in the study. Three-quarters of students thought the workshop would reduce bullying in schools, and over 95% of the participants thought that other secondary schools should offer the workshop. There was a significant increase in valuing (p < 0.001) and understanding (p < 0.001) sexuality-diverse individuals (e.g. lesbian, gay and bisexual people), between the pre- and post-workshop results. School climates were largely perceived to be 'hard' and included 'bullying/mocking' of sexuality-diverse students; however, many individual students reported a desire to be supportive of their sexuality-diverse peers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Sexuality-based bullying is commonplace in secondary schools. This form of bullying is associated with depression and suicide attempts. Reducing sexuality-based bullying is very likely to have a positive impact on the mental health of young people. Brief workshops, as a part of a wider suite of interventions, have some potential to create safer school environments.
authors.affiliation: Lecturer and Research Fellow, Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand m.lucassen@auckland.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Mathijs F G
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Lucassen
authors.affiliation: Lecturer, Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education, Thammasat University, Rangsit, Thailand.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burford
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D058445:Bullying / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004493:Education / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012574:Schools; D019529:Sexuality / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: adolescents; behaviour modification programmes; bisexual; bullying; gay; high school behaviour; lesbian; sexuality; workshop