Student's experiences with traditional bullying and cyberbullying : findings from a Romanian sample

The field of cyberbullying is relatively new and there is no universal consensus on its definition, measurement and intervention. Authors agree that bullying has entered into the digital domain and professionals require the skills to help identify and prevent these behaviours. Ninety two students were surveyed to determine their experience with different types of bullying behaviors (face-to-face, cyberbullying or both), as bully, victim or witness. Our objective was to explore the association between those types of bullying and anxiety. The results suggest a significant association between face-to-face bullying and anxiety. Similarly, there was significant association between experiencing both types of bullying and anxiety. Further studies are required with larger and more diverse samples in order to verify current findings and to test for additional associations.

Correlates of traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration among Australian students

This study investigated the associations of gender, age, trait anger, moral disengagement, witnessing of interparental conflict, school connectedness and the religious makeup of the school setting in the involvement in traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration. Five hundred Australian students completed an anonymous self-report, paper-based questionnaire. According to the results, 25.2% of the participants reported having engaged in traditional or cyberbullying perpetration. While trait anger and moral disengagement were associated with being a traditional bully, trait anger, interparental conflicts, moral disengagement and school connectedness were associated with being a traditional bully-victim. Additionally, trait anger and moral disengagement were associated with being a traditional-and-a-cyberbully. Our findings indicated that besides individual variables, the family and school environment have an impact on traditional and cyberbullying perpetration behavior. Results imply that any prevention attempts to reduce traditional and cyberbullying should consider students’ experiences both at home and at school.

The modern day bystander: Online and face-to-face bystander actions of adolescents in traditional bullying and cyberbullying

This study investigated whether bystanders of traditional bullying and cyberbullying used face-to-face methods, online methods or both methods when reporting, discouraging and providing support to the victims of traditional bullying and cyberbullying. A questionnaire was completed by 348 high school students (Years 7 – 12) from seven independent schools in Australia. Overall, students predominantly utilized face-to-face methods when reporting to others for both types of bullying. Older students were more likely to use online methods to discourage the traditional bully (i.e., asking the bully to stop). Males and older students were more likely to use online methods to support victims of traditional bullying. Females were more likely to use face-to-face methods to support victims of cyberbullying. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Heterosexual and nonheterosexual young university students’ involvement in traditional and cyber forms of bullying

Research has consistently found that school students who do not identify as self-declared completely heterosexual are at increased risk of victimization by bullying from peers. This study examined heterosexual and nonheterosexual university students’ involvement in both traditional and cyber forms of bullying, as either bullies or victims. Five hundred twenty-eight first-year university students (M= 19.52 years old) were surveyed about their sexual orientation and their bullying experiences over the previous 12 months. The results showed that nonheterosexual young people reported higher levels of involvement in traditional bullying, both as victims and perpetrators, in comparison to heterosexual students. In contrast, cyberbullying trends were generally found to be similar for heterosexual and nonheterosexual young people. Gender differences were also found. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of intervention and prevention of the victimization of nonheterosexual university students.

Victims’ perceptions of traditional and cyberbullying, and the psychosocial correlates of their victimisation

It is well recognised that there are serious correlates for victims of traditional bullying. These have been shown to include increased levels of depression, anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms, in addition to often severe physical harm and even suicide. Bullied students also feel more socially ineffective; have greater interpersonal difficulties, together with higher absenteeism from school and lower academic competence. In the emerging field of cyberbullying many researchers have hypothesised a greater impact and more severe consequences for victims because of the 24/7 nature and the possibility of the wider audience with this form of bullying. However, to date there is scarce empirical evidence to support this. This study sought to compare victims’ perceptions of the harshness and impact of bullying by traditional and cyber means. The major findings showed that although students who had been victimised by traditional bullying reported that they felt their bullying was harsher, crueller and had more impact on their lives than those students who had been cyberbullied, the correlates of their mental health revealed that cyber victims reported significantly more social difficulties, higher anxiety levels and depression than traditional victims. The implications for school counsellors and mental health workers are discussed.

Sibling bullying perpetration: Associations with gender, grade, peer perpetration, trait anger, and moral disengagement

This study investigated bullying amongst siblings in both traditional and cyber forms, and the associations of gender, grade, peer bullying perpetration, trait anger and moral disengagement. The participants were 455 children in grades 5 to 12 (262 girls and 177 boys with 16 unknown gender) who had a sibling. As the number of siblings who only bullied by technology was low, these associations were not able to be calculated. However, the findings showed that the percentage of sibling traditional bullying perpetration (31.6%) was higher than peer bullying perpetration (9.8%). Sibling bullies reported engaging in complex behaviours of perpetration and victimisation in both the physical and in cyber settings, although the number was small. Gender, trait anger, moral disengagement and bullying peers at school (but not grade) were all significantly associated with sibling traditional bullying perpetration. The implications of the findings are discussed for bullying intervention and prevention programs to understand childhood bullying in diverse contexts.

On standby? A comparison of online and offline witnesses to bullying and their bystander behaviour

Given their ubiquitous presence as witnesses to school-yard bullying, the role of the ‘bystander’ has been studied extensively. The prevalence and behaviour of bystanders to cyberbullying, however, is less understood. In an anonymous, school-based questionnaire, 716 secondary school students from South-East Queensland reported whether they had witnessed traditional and/or cyberbullying, and how they responded to each type. Overlap in bystander roles between online and offline environments was examined, as was their relationship to age and gender. Students who witnessed traditional bullying were more likely to have witnessed cyberbullying. Bystanders’ behaviour was sometimes similar in both contexts of traditional and cyberbullying, mainly if they were outsiders but half of the 256 students who reported witnessing both traditional and cyberbullying, acted in different roles across the two environments. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of previous research on cyberbullying and traditional-bystanders. Future research should further explore the role of bystanders online, including examining whether known predictors of traditional-bystander behaviour similarly predict cyber-bystander behaviour.

Policies and Procedures to Address Bullying at Australian Universities

While bullying is often researched in children and adolescents and in the workplace, there is limited research in the emerging adult population, especially in students at university. This is perhaps due to the fact that bullying generally declines as children and young people become older (e.g., Nansel et al., 2001; Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). Although this may indeed be the case, it is apparent that bullying does not completely abate when students graduate from high school. The plethora of literature evidencing workplace bullying, clearly shows that bullying continues beyond the school years (e.g., Hoel, Cooper, & Faragher, 2001; Privitera & Campbell, 2009). With the advent of cyberbullying in the last decade it has been shown that this particular form of bullying may not decrease with age as does traditional bullying (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; Raskauskas & Stoltz, 2007). In addition, we know there is a spike in prevalence rates during the transition from primary to high school Pellegrini et al., 2010), so it is possible that new university students are at an increased risk of victimisation due to this being a transition period. This has led to some interest in examining the prevalence of bullying in the emerging adult population at universities (Chapell, Casey, & de la Cruz, 2004; Pontzer, 2010; Wensley & Campbell, 2009).

Cyberbullying : a threat to student mental health and wellbeing

Cyberbullying is a threat to student mental health and wellbeing. As predicted the consequences of cyberbullying have been shown to be more detrimental to students than traditional bullying because of the wider audience and the 24/7 nature of this form of bullying. It is becoming an increasingly vexatious problem for victims, students who bully, educators and parents. Parents and the community are turning to schools to provide preventative strategies and to manage incidents of cyberbullying. Some sections of the community believe there is a technological solution to the problem, or that the law should be overhauled to address the problem more effectively. However, bullying is a deeply embedded social relationship problem, of which cyberbullying is one form. Therefore, planned prevention and intervention strategies need to be considered in the context of the social relationships in the whole school community.

How research findings can inform legislation and school policy on cyberbullying.

Recent empirical research has found that the psychological consequences for young people involved in cyberbullying are more severe than in the case of traditional bullying (Campbell, Spears, Slee, Butler, & Kift, 2012; Perren, Dooley, Shaw, & Cross, 2010). Cybervictimisation has been found to be a significant predictor of depressive symptoms over and above that of being victimised by traditional bullying (Perren et al., 2010). Cybervictims also have reported higher anxiety scores and social difficulties than traditional victims, with those students who had been bullied by both forms showing similar anxiety and depression scores to cyberbullying victims (Campbell et al., 2012). This is supported by the subjective views of many young people, not involved in bullying, who believed that cyberbullying is far more harmful than traditional bullying (Cross et al., 2009). However, students who were traditionally bullied thought the consequences of traditional bullying were harsher than did those students who were cyberbullied (Campbell, et al., 2012). In Slonje and Smith’s study (2008), students reported that text messaging and email bullying had less of an impact than traditional bullying, but that bullying by pictures or video clips had more negative impact than traditional bullying.

Students’ perceptions of their own victimization: A youth voice perspective

This article investigates the perceptions of 156 students who were victims of both traditional and cyberbullying (117 female, 45 male), ages 10 to 17 years, as to which form of bullying was more hurtful. Overall, students perceived traditional victimization to be more hurtful than cyber victimization. Reasons identified in the data to explain the different perceptions of victims were categorized and found to relate to: the bully, the bystanders, the bullying incidents, the emotional impact on the victim, and the victim’s ability to respond. The perceptions of these students challenge a number of suppositions presented in the literature that attempt to explain why cyberbullying is associated with more negative outcomes than traditional bullying. The implications for antibullying programs to address these issues are discussed.

Australian pre-service teachers' Knowledge and understanding of cyberbullying: Implications for school climate

The beliefs, attitudes and understandings of pre-service teachers towards bullying and more recently, cyberbullying remains unclear. Previous studies have found them to be generally lacking confidence to address bullying, which could impact negatively on school climate if, when they enter the profession, these beliefs undermine existing anti-bullying initiatives. This study explores Australian pre-service teachers' (N= 717) understanding and knowledge of traditional bullying and cyberbullying and their confidence and capacity to deal with it. Findings from self-report, anonymous questionnaires from students attending three universities in Australia indicated that two thirds (66%) of current pre-service teachers felt informed to very informed and capable to very capable (62%) of dealing with school bullying and 90% could discern cyber and traditional bullying behaviours from other online and offline aggressive acts. Gender and Year level differences were found. The potential impact of their knowledge and understanding of bullying and cyberbullying on school climate, and sustaining and maintaining anti-bullying interventions as they enter the profession is discussed.

Riesgos de victimización de adolescentes menores en los contextos tecnológicos de socialidad

[ES]En el presente trabajo, se abordan las formas cambiantes en las relaciones de socialidad de los adolescentes menores, la influencia de los avances tecnológicos en estas, así como los conflictos entre iguales que emergen en estos nuevos espacios, enfocando el trabajo en el fenómeno del cyberbullying desde un punto de vista criminológico. El objetivo ha consistido en analizar las nuevas formas de relación social que se expanden hoy en día, sobre todo por la irrupción de Internet como forma de interacción social y reconocer las conductas de riesgo que comienzan a aparecer en este ámbito, para identificar las formulas necesarias de prevención. La primera parte del trabajo está centrada en contextualizar la forma de socialidad, desde una conceptualización amplia hasta las características actuales derivadas del uso de la tecnología como herramienta de relación social, recogiendo los debates generados en torno al posible debilitamiento del capital social. En el siguiente apartado, se explora el ciberespacio, sus riesgos y oportunidades delictivas, buscando analizar posteriormente y en profundidad el cyberbullying, así como sus factores de victimización y sus similitudes y diferencias con respecto al bullying tradicional. A continuación, con el fin de subrayar y extraer las características que debe tener un programa de prevención, se expone una iniciativa pionera, a modo de estudio de caso. En esta se utiliza la formación en mediación de los propios menores para resolver o prevenir estas problemáticas, implantado en un instituto público de Zaragoza.

An exploration of the reasons why adolescents engage in traditional and cyber bullying

This study explored the reasons underlying adolescents’ perceptions of why their peers engage in bullying in the real and the cyber world. While there has been much research on why bullies engage in such behaviour, ranging from personality characteristics to social or familial reasons, the perceptions of young people on the motives of cyberbullies has not been researched. A new instrument, based on interviews and a literature review was piloted to measure young people’s perceptions of why their peers engage in both traditional and cyberbullying behaviour, according to their role in bullying. Four hundred students were surveyed in three co-educational independent secondary schools. A comparison between perceptions of bullies’ motives in traditional and cyberbullying was made. Implications for interventions with bullies are discussed.

Understanding bystanders’ willingness to Intervene in traditional and cyberbullying scenarios.

Bullying incidents in traditional and online settings are a cause for concern to many parties. The goal of the current study was to explore the extent to which a bystander would intervene in a bullying incident and the degree to which this behavior is influenced by group size (the number of other witnesses), the setting (traditional or cyberbullying), and gender of the victim. Using an online survey method, participants were presented with eight bullying scenarios, each of which involved verbal bullying of a victim. Participants (N = 82) were asked to report how likely they would be to intervene in each of these scenarios. Results showed that female victims were more likely to be helped than male victims. Furthermore, female participants were more willing to intervene than the male participants in the cyberbullying scenarios. Altruism was a positive predictor of participants’ willingness to intervene. The present findings suggest that certain gender differences in helping behavior may depend on the context in which bullying is observed (traditional or cyberbullying).