Four out of five children born in non-English speaking countries have experienced racism in school at least once a month.

Deakin University researcher Naomi Priest presented these findings of a survey of children at five primary schools and four high schools in Victoria to the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Dr Priest said being told ''you don't belong in Australia'' was the most common form of direct racism in schools, with one in five students hearing this at least every month. Students also reported their peers excluded them or didn't want to play with them because of their race, while 14 per cent said they were spat on, pushed or hit. One in 10 students thought their teacher did not think they could do something because of their cultural background.

Dr Priest said the experiences of school students reflected the rise in racist behaviour in the broader community. The latest Scanlon Foundation report on social cohesion revealed two-fifths of migrants who arrived in Australia in the past decade had been discriminated against because of their race.

''Schools can be a real microcosm of society where young people are negotiating those intercultural tensions that they are seeing within the wider environment,'' Dr Priest said. ''Schools can be a very important setting of socialisation in which racist behaviours and attitudes can either be countered or perpetuated.''

Dr Priest said 70 per cent of high-school students had witnessed or experienced racism at school, while previous research by the Victorian Department of Education had found 55 per cent of students thought racism was a problem at their school.

Less than half the students Dr Priest surveyed reported positive attitudes towards people from other cultures, although the vast majority thought it was important to be nice to their peers.