ABSTRACT
This edited collection bears witness to the fact that different discourses about bullying exist in different countries and according to the different disciplines from which scholars derive their theoretical and methodological standpoints. No one discourse takes precedence over the other, however, it is important that we understand how these different discourses have emerged and how they can be understood in order to better the lives and educational experiences of young people in schools today. There also remain signifi cant gaps in our knowledge of the interplay between sexuality and gender within the context of education. Do we, for example, still presume that what works for lesbian and gay young people will also work for bisexual, transgender or ‘queer’ young people? How many resources and role models currently exist that allow us to provide positive reinforcement to bisexual young people, those who politically and socially identify as queer, and indeed those who are transgender? Do we continue to construct stories of gender that offer biologically rather than socially determined explanations of why men and women differ? Are critical discourses included in curricula that open the minds of young people to alternative, socially constructed explanations of the world in which they live and the roles they have accepted or been given?
