Inclusive school practices for all youth: A European Cross-National Study of general, sexual orientation, and gender identity-based bullying.

Bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI-based bullying) is prevalent across Europe. This study examined the associations among student-level and school-level inclusive school practices and general and SOGI-based bullying across LGBTQ+ students and heterosexual cisgender students. Data were drawn from 13 European countries, with a final analytic sample of n = 6730. Participants had a mean age of 16.37 years (SD = 1.46), and 58% identified as LGBTQ+. Results from multivariate multilevel models indicated that SOGI-inclusive anti-bullying policies at the student level and positive LGBTQ+ representation at both the school and student levels were associated with lower rates of bullying, whereas SOGI-inclusive sex education was not significantly associated with bullying outcomes. Further analyses showed that these inclusive school practices were negatively associated with general and SOGI-based bullying to the same extent. More importantly, such associations were similar between LGBTQ+ students and heterosexual cisgender students. Overall, the findings highlight that inclusive school practices could be protective against both SOGI-based and general bullying for all students, emphasizing the need for school interventions that explicitly address stigma toward LGBTQ+ identities to foster safer and more supportive school environments.