In this article the writer talked about cyberbullying in schools and they have surveyed students from the age of 11 to 19 years old, the first group of student were asked to take part in a focus group to help gather information and the second group of students was used to help them extend the finding of the first group to investigate the relationship between the cyberbullying and how the use of the internet has affect the research results.
In the article the writers talked about the form of cyberbullying and what was mostly used to bully victims and “many focus group pupils said text messaging, due to its anonymity” (Smith et al., 2008) so from the research the writers found out that text messages are mostly used because of the idea of the bullies being anonymous and they can hide behind a screen to target their victims and most young people have a phone so this form of cyberbullying will be more affective. Another thing that the focus group has found out when asking about cyberbullying was that most students will not admit to it because of the fear of being threatened so most of them will keep silence in the hope that the cyberbullying will stop. From the study one of the students responded that the cyberbullying happens equally or greater outside of school where the focus group students said that cyberbullying occurred more often outside of schooling because they can’t be tracked down and no one is checking on you.
The other research that the writers had conducted was on the victims and why they are targeted and the results from the research shows that “Many cybervictims were also traditional victims, and most cyberbullies were also traditional bullies.” (Smith et al., 2008. p, 377) so from this result we know that the bullying continues outside the school through the form of cyberbullying where the victims can be victimise at all time
From the study conducted by the writers, they found out that “virtually all pupils (99%) used the internet” .” (Smith et al., 2008. p, 380) which means that they can be a target for cyberbullying at all times but also from the research this doesn’t’ change the statistics of who is being cyberbullied it just tells us that most of the students can be targeted through social media.
From reading the article I have found a related online article of how cyberbullying had increase by 37% in schools as of 2017 and that is because of the raising number of young people having access to social media without parental guidance or school support. In this article it also talked about how “62% of teachers don’t believe they are fully supported” (Education Technology, 2017) to get the right training to teach the young people the right use of social media which had the domino effect of the increasing number of students becoming victim to cyberbullying.
I have looked at this video where it shows us so clearly how easy it is for someone to be cyberbullied. In the video it shows that the cyberbullying is a continual bullying from school and the victims were receiving text messages or emails that was invading the victims personal space. It also shows how important it is for parents to take action if they suspect if something is wrong and how the school has to take this issue serious and deal with appropriately.
From the article and the other related work, the practice based solution that I think will work best for this issue is to create a video where teachers can use it to clearly explain to students the seriousness of cyberbullying and how they can avoid or identify the issue. The video will contain advice on how students can support others and what teachers can do to help cyberbully victims to deal with the problem. This way the teachers will get support on how to deal with the issue correctly and they in turn will then be able to help and support students. This project idea then will link to the research and findings from the articles I have read to address the problem within the school environment.
Bibliography:
Smith, P., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., Fisher, S., Russell, S. and Tippett, N. (2008). Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Education Technology. (2017). [online] Available at: https://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/37-rise-in-cyber-bullying-reported-in-schools/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2010). Anti-Bullying week Cyber Bullying video. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S03Br1dwJR8 [Accessed 16 Dec. 2018].
IMAP 