PREFACE

There has been a great deal of public debate over the last three years about the issue of violence in New South Wales schools. By and large, the debate has not been informed by a sober assessment of the available empirical evidence on the problem. Researchers must take some of the blame for this. Despite the wealth of Australian research interest in educational issues only very few studies have been conducted on the problem of school violence. Nature and the media abhor a vacuum. So it is no surprise to see public perceptions of the apparent scale and character of the problem of school violence shaped by endless television replays of dramatic but utterly atypical incidents fortuitously recorded on film. The intensity of public and media interest in the problem of school violence created a research dilemma for the Bureau. Government policy on school violence in the United States of America has been informed by two very large-scale representative sample surveys. Only very limited survey work of this kind has been carried out in Australia, although it is undoubtedly the most reliable means of obtaining information on the character and prevalence of school violence. Large-scale sample surveys, however, are expensive an