Equality campaigners have warned that Scottish country dancing is one of the school activities most likely to lead to LGBT pupils being bullied by their peers - and the chair of the national body for PE teachers has questioned whether it should be practised in school at all.

The boy pulled his top over his hand so he didn’t have to touch the ‘gay boy’

Social dance is on the curriculum across schools in Scotland and is seen by many as a unique rite of passage.

But Hugh Torrance, executive director of Leap Sports Scotland, told TESS that his charity received many requests for help from teachers and LGBT pupils when schools did social dance.

“We still tend to segregate by gender for most experiences in PE. Therefore, the novelty of bringing all the class together for social dancing on an annual basis creates another layer of what [social scientist and former footballer] Jamie Cleland would have called a ‘proving ground’ of masculinity,” Mr Torrance said.

Reeling from hurtful ‘banter’

This could result in hurtful “banter”, teasing and more explicit bullying of those deemed insufficiently masculine, he said. That was even before pupils had to pick partners and take them by the hand, which, at best, led to discomfort and “plenty of sniggers”, and, at worst, “very explicit” remarks from peers.

“One pupil recently recounted to us having to hold hands with another boy in the Dashing White Sergeant,” said Mr Torrance. “The other boy pulled his long-sleeved top over his hand so he didn’t have to touch the ‘gay boy’ in case he caught ‘it’.”

Mr Torrance does not want social dance removed from schools, but believes that pupils would deal with it better if the novelty factor were removed by mixing boys and girls more often in PE. Social dance also caused anxiety for non-LGBT pupils, he added, as no one wanted to be picked last.

His charity - which works for greater inclusion of LGBT people in sport - hopes to prepare guidance for teachers on social dance by 2017-18. He highlighted work at Glasgow’s Shawlands Academy, where pupils discuss expectations of PE at the start of the year and flag up potential problems in advance.

Karen McCubbin, general secretary of the Scottish Association of Teachers of Physical Education (SATPE), noted a potential link between the “gender-specific” nature of social dance and homophobic bullying.

“Do we drop social dance from the curriculum, perhaps, or do we shift the way it’s taught?” she asked. Her preferred option would involve exploring the “cultural heritage” of social dance, “opening up the debate about why girls and boys would be paired”.

Euan Duncan, a guidance teacher and president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA), said: “An experienced PE teacher will avoid the more genderspecific dances.”

Dances such as Strip the Willow and the Eightsome Reel provided safer territory, he added, as these were performed in large groups where a pupil was not always in contact with the same person.

‘Vulnerabilities exposed’

Mr Torrance raised more general concerns that, despite schools having made big strides in combating bullying of LGBT pupils, “we definitely aren’t seeing the same in PE”.

He spoke at the recent Football, Education and Prejudice conference in Glasgow, and later told TESS that “PE environments vary massively” in the privacy and support they afford pupils. Those “who stand out as different have their vulnerabilities more readily exposed” in PE and bullying is “amplified”.

Catherine Somerville, Stonewall Scotland’s campaigns, policy and research manager, said PE was “a place where often the teachers aren’t around” and that pupils frequently felt exposed in changing rooms. Teachers, meanwhile, told her organisation that sport “plays a big role in bullying”, with non-sporty boys often the victims.

Ms McCubbin agreed that changing rooms and toilets presented “logistical elements to be addressed” but said that schools were starting to promote “safe spaces where young people can be themselves”.

Mr Duncan said that, in an ideal world, all pupils would have their own cubicles, but that with up to 100 young people in some PE departments at one time, that was probably not affordable.

Last week’s event heard that only a tiny number of professional footballers had come out as gay, and Ms Somerville said sport was “losing out on a whole pool of people” because they did not feel comfortable in sporting environments from an early age.

@Henry_Hepburn