A new study paints a stark contrast about bullying that occurs on-reserve and when the practise takes place off-reserve.
Marla Rogers is one of the researchers who took part in the study.
It was carried out on 7 First Nations within the Saskatoon area back in May of 2010.
She says they looked at physical, verbal, social and electronic bullying among youth.
In all cases she says they found the frequency of bullying was higher on-reserve than off.
However she says it’s often done for different reasons.
Rogers says children living off-reserve were often targeted if they were living in poverty or if their parents had a low education.
However she explains that when it came to on-reserve bullying, the kids being targeted often were doing well in school or who had parents that were working.
“Low-income is pretty much the norm I think. These reserves had a household income of 8 to 9 thousand dollars in 2006 so generally the norm is low-income. The reasons they were being bulled was if they were outside the norm of that. So if their father worked in a professional occupation or if they were doing well in school these were listed as some of the reasons why they were being bullied.”
Rogers says many kids told them they wanted to see bullies discliplined at school more often as well as the creation of more anti-bullying programs.