ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some research into policies and procedures of Australian universities. It examines each of the three sectors, schools, workplaces and universities in terms of the existence of anti-bullying policies, their content and the effectiveness of the policies. The plethora of literature evidencing workplace bullying clearly shows that bullying continues beyond the school years. A small study of the anti-bullying policies of 20 Australian universities was conducted for this chapter. The research on the content of school anti-bullying policies was analysed by Smith and colleagues with four main categories: definition of bullying behaviour; reporting and responding to bullying incidents; recording bullying, communicating and evaluating the policy; and strategies for preventing bullying. The first part of any anti-bullying policy document is defining what that institution considers to be bullying, which ensures objectivity. It seems anti-bullying policies in Australian universities are part of health and safety, and are much more workplace policies dealing with employed staff than with student-to-student bullying.
