LADETTE culture is on the increase in classrooms across the Lancaster and Morecambe area, say teachers.

A study carried out by Lancaster University found that girls as young as 13 are smoking, swearing, fighting, drinking and disrupting lessons in ever higher numbers.

Dr Carolyn Jackson at the Department of Educational Research at the university interviewed 30 teachers at six secondary schools and 1000 pupils completed questionnaires as part of her survey.

It is the first time that academic research has been carried out into school-age ladettes'.

Says Dr Jackson: "Initially the term ladette was associated mainly with post-school-age young women. However, more recently the press has reported concerns about schoolgirls becoming ladettes'.

Awful She says fellow pupils portray ladettes' as hard, loud, disruptive, rude to teachers, mildly aggressive to some other pupils and frequently swearing, according to Dr Jackson's research.

One teacher said: "I think the girls are becoming an awful lot more assertive in the way they deal with things, not always for the right reasons.

"I'm very much in favour of women being assertive but I don't like the element of arrogance that goes with it.

"You've got to draw that line between the two otherwise they simply appear to be almost bordering on rude."

Dr Jackson found that teachers were also concerned about how much alcohol girls drink outside of school.

She says pupils interviewed did little to allay these fears - by confirming that a large propor-tion of girls go out drinking on a regular basis.