Nearly a Third of Pupils in Russian Schools Say They’ve Seen or Experienced Ethnic Bullying, Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 14 – A new Nazaccent poll of 500 of the approximately 500,000 people who viewed a video about interethnic relations in Russian schools found that almost a third of the pupils – 31.8 percent --- said they had seen or experienced ethnic bullying there and almost half – 44.5 percent – said that bullying does take place in Russian schools.

            It is far from clear how representative a sample in fact this is based on, but it is a rare indication of just how widespread bullying by members of one nationality against members of another now is in Russian schools (nazaccent.ru/content/42103-bulling-po-nacionalnomu-priznaku/).

            And these results are also worrisome in that they suggest that members of the younger generation in the Russian Federation may be as much or more hostile than their elders to those who are members of ethnic groups other than their own and in that they indicate that claims of widespread tolerance and even affection are at a minimum wildly overstated.

            Those conclusions are reenforced by quotations from various participants in this survey that the Nazaccent portal chose to publish.