When you study education, you occasionally stumble upon findings that are both simple and uncomfortable. Simple, because the main takeaway fits into a single sentence. Uneasy, because that sentence tells us things we would much rather see differently. The new study by Berkowitz and colleagues on victimisation, school climate and mental health among more than a million pupils in California is exactly such a case. And yes, more than a million sounds impressive, but it does not mean every conclusion is automatically causal or universally applicable. I will come back to that.

The starting point is, unfortunately, familiar. Pupils who are victims of bullying report far higher rates of sadness, hopelessness and even suicidal thoughts. No shit, Sherlock. We already knew that. But the study makes an important distinction that is often missing in the literature: bullying that is not identity-related, such as name-calling, shoving or rumours, versus bullying that is identity-based. Think of comments or aggression linked to ethnicity, skin colour, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion. This second category, which the authors call bias-based victimisation, turns out to be far more harmful. In the dataset, more than half of these young people report prolonged sadness and hopelessness, and around a third report suicidal thoughts. It isn’t easy to read such figures without pausing for a moment.

So far, nothing uplifting, but also nothing surprising. Deeper wounds leave deeper marks. But then comes the striking, almost counter-intuitive result. School climate, typically one of the most robust protective factors for pupil wellbeing, does not protect everyone equally. In schools with a positive social climate, pupils, on average, feel better, but the benefits are not evenly distributed. The better the school, the smaller the advantage for bullied pupils. And for those targeted by identity-based bullying, the advantage becomes very small. This phenomenon is known as the healthy context paradox. In an environment where almost everyone is thriving, it becomes even more visible when you are the one who is not. For victims, this can lead to stronger social comparison, more self-blame and a heightened sense of isolation.

Before we embrace this finding as a universal law, nuance is essential. The dataset is impressively large, but still cross-sectional. That means we are looking at correlations rather than causal chains. Do pupils feel worse because the school climate is positive, or do they experience the climate as less positive because they are already victims? We cannot tell from this design. Regional contexts matter as well. not every place in the world is like California in terms of demographics, culture or policy. Schools differ in their diversity, in how they address discrimination, and in their socio-economic composition. What produces a paradox in one system may look quite different elsewhere.

Another missing element in this type of research is the daily reality behind the numbers. A positive school climate is an average, not a description of every corner of a school. A school may feel safe for 90 per cent of pupils, but that tells us little about the one pupil whose experience is different. The paradox may therefore be less mysterious than it sounds. The better the context, the sharper the contrasts.

Still, the study is valuable precisely because it does not simply confirm what we like to hear. It forces us to reconsider the familiar reflex: improve the school climate, and things will get better. That does indeed help many pupils, but not necessarily the pupils who are most vulnerable. Identity-based bullying touches on stigma and power relations that do not disappear through stronger relationships or greater parental involvement. These issues require more targeted support: interventions that explicitly address discrimination, norms and the attributions victims make.

Perhaps that is the most important lesson repeated in this study. Good education policy should not only lift averages but also consider the small groups who diverge from those averages. Especially when their pain lies in who they are.

Image: https://www.pexels.com/nl-nl/foto/notitieboekje-bloc-note-meisje-school-6936479/