The survey is being carried out by researchers in the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge for Stonewall. Stonewall is an organisation that campaigns for equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people. The Centre for Family Research has done lots of research with families and young people. The two of us from the Centre who are carrying out the research are Helen Statham and Vasanti Jadva.
Click here to find out more about Stonewall and the Centre for Family Research.
Five years ago Stonewall carried out the first big study about LGB young people’s experiences at school. That survey showed that many LGB young people were bullied and that a lot of schools didn’t do anything about it. Stonewall have used the information from that survey to work to try to improve things. This survey will tell us what things are like now. We’ll be able to see if things have changed and what still needs to be done to make things better.
The survey is about your experiences in school or college – if your school helps you, how it deals with bullying and what it could do better. There are also some questions about your feelings. There are some questions about the sort of school you’re in, what part of the country you live in and other things about you.
You can take part if you are at school or college (including FE college) in England, Scotland or Wales, or have recently left; are aged between 11 and 19; and are lesbian, gay or bisexual (or think you might be). You can tell your friends about the survey if you think they might want to take part.
If you fill in the survey online then NO ONE will know you’ve taken part in the survey. We don’t ask for any information that could tell us who you are – so we will never know your name, your address, your email address or your phone number. EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL AND ANONYMOUS.
If you request a paper version of the survey, we’ll get rid of your contact details once we’ve sent it out to you. The paper version won’t ask for any details about you so when it comes back it will still be COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL AND ANONYMOUS.
The survey should take about 30 minutes to complete. The more you tell us, the more we will know! Most of the questions ask you to tick boxes but there is lots of space for you to write about things you think are important.
We’d like it if you could answer all the questions but if there are some you’d rather not answer, you don’t have to. You can stop part way through and return to it, as long as you are using the same computer. If you decide to take part and then change your mind - you can just stop. You don’t have to give us any reason and we won’t use any of the information you’ve given us.
It may be that some of the questions might be upsetting if they make you think about difficult things that have happened to you at school. We have provided a list of phone numbers and websites at the end of the survey for places and organisations that might be able to help if you want to talk. You can also contact us in any of the ways written below with any questions.
If you want any further information you can contact us in a number of ways.
Email: speakout@sdp.cam.ac.uk
Phone: 01223334580 and either speak to our secretary or leave a message on her answerphone
Write: Helen and Vasanti, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RF
We’ll do what we can to help with a translation or a person to help you fill it in. Just contact us in any of the ways listed above if you want to talk about this.
Once we have received your survey, the information will be entered into a computer program so we can analyse all the data. We’ll use the results to write a report that will be published in 2012. At the end of the survey we tell you where you’ll be able to see that report. This will contain lots of statistics and some of the comments that people write, but nothing that can identify you.
If you’ve read this page, don’t have any more questions and understand what we’ve said, then you’re ready to take part – just click on the link below. There are four questions that are the only ones that you HAVE to answer - you only need to tick boxes and then you’ll be able to take part.
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