School violence in the United Kingdom: Addressing the problem

Abstract

The United Kingdom (UK) consists of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) and Northern Ireland; it has a mid-1999 population estimate of 59,500,900 (National Statistics, 2000). England, the largest country, has nine regional areas: North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, London, South East and South West. As of 1998, ethnic minority populations make up 7.5 per cent of the population of England, and about 1.5 per cent of the population of Wales and Scotland. In London, the proportion rises to 25 per cent. Greater London contains over 80 per cent of the total Black African population, nearly 60 per cent of the Black Caribbean population, almost half of the Bangladeshi and over 40 per cent of the Indian population. Nearly half of the Pakistani population lives in the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands (National Statistics, 2001).