Conference Report (Short Version)

New Forms of School Bullying and Violence: Cyberbullying, Happy Slapping and Other New Trends

International Online Conference, April 24 - May 19, 2006

Conference site with further information
Detailed version of this report (pdf, in English)
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Contents

In this short report of the online conference “New Forms of School Bullying and Violence”, you find a short description of the background, concept and methodology of the online conference as well as a short summary of the main outcomes of its discussions. A more detailed full version of this report is available at XXXXX

About the online Conference

The online conference ‘New Forms of School Bullying and Violence’ was the third out of five online conferences of the VISIONARIES-NET project. For an overview of the other conferences and more information about the VISONARIES-NET see www.bullying-in-school.info/en/content/conferences/online-conferences.html
The conference addressed to persons who are affected by or interested in new forms of school bullying and violence - like e.g. cyberbullying or 'happy slapping' - or topics related to school bullying and violence that are currently discussed in the public of a country - like e.g. homophobic bullying or racist bullying.
The target groups of the conference included e.g. teachers, pupils, parents, representatives of web sites, researchers, professionals, representatives of communities, policy makers and others affected by or interested in new forms on school bullying and violence. A full list of all participants is available at conference4.bullying-in-school.info/index.php

Concept and Methodology of the Conference

The conference consisted of an asynchronous forum to which only the invited participants had access. The forum was open 24 hours a day for four weeks. That way, it was made possible for the participants from all over the world to take part in the discussion whenever they found the time.

As the participants were considered to be experts for the overall topic of the conference, they were involved in the process of selecting the topics. The moderators offered them a short questionnaire with questions related to the four topics of the week. Those answers were then analysed and served as starting points for the conference’s discussions in different threads. There, the participants reflected once again about the answers they and their colleagues had given to the initial questions and used those answers as a base for further discussions. This multilevel process resembles the so-called Delphi approach, which is used to structure new, yet unexplored fields of research with help of a group of experts.
 
There was one major topic for every week, each consisting of 3-4 subtopics that were discussed in several threads. The topics were not – as intentionally planned – closed exactly at the end of the week, but left open somewhat longer in order not to interrupt interesting discussions. The outcomes of the discussions were summarized at regular intervals and presented to the participants in the conference forum.

They were informed about the opening and closing process via a daily newsletter. In an off-topic section, the experts could discuss other important issues which were related to the topic of ‘Coping with School Bullying and Violence using the Internet’ but didn’t fit in any of the main threads.
 
The conference’s main outcomes in brief

Outcomes of the questioning of participants that preceded the conference 

The participants identified two types of “new” forms and trends related to SBV: 

• New forms of SBV in which offenders make use of new technologies and new media such as cyberbullying, “happy slapping” or the use of mobile phones for bullying others.
• Forms of SBV that already existed previously but have recently been in the focus of public attention and the media, like e.g. homophobic bullying, stalking, violence against females or offences against special needs’ children. 
• According to the participants, factors that contribute to the development of new forms of SBV are e.g. an easy access to and a growing dependence on new technologies, a lack of control by parents, the anonymity in the Internet and a lack of tangible feedback, the growing violence in the media as well as society as a (wrong) role model. Other potential factors that were mentioned less frequently were e.g. a lack of education (especially concerning bullying of special needs children), the fact that teachers are not trained enough and/or do not have the capacity and power to intervene, a belittlement of the problem, a lack of consciousness by politicians, the fact that children grow up in an environment that lacks of intimate emotional communication or the pace in which new technologies develop.
• The following strategies for tackling and coping with new forms of SBV were suggested: raising awareness and training for teachers, parents, pupils and other target groups and teaching of moral values. Less frequently the following intervention strategies were mentioned: mobilizing the bystanders not to close their eyes, more support for the victims, independent inspectors to work with the schools, community involvement, peer mediation, harsh consequences for bullies and more research to identify characteristics of bullies, victims and bystanders.

Topic 1: New forms, developments and trends related to SBV

New forms, developments and trends related to SBV

According to the discussions there are different types of new forms related to SBV

• Forms of SBV that are really new and that to some extent seem to differ from the ‘traditional’ face-to-face school bullying – like the various types of cyberbullying – and
• Forms of SBV that are currently in the focus of the public attention, amongst others because the media get aware of them, e.g. because of recent incidents in a country.
• Our discussions revealed that cyberbullying includes various forms that can be defined and categorised in different ways, e.g. by the medium or by the type of action.
• Categorised by the type of medium, cyberbullying includes the use of the Internet (e-mail, blogging, social networking sites) and mobile phones (SMS, taking pictures with cameras, exchange of violent films). 
• Categorised by the type of action, cyberbullying includes ‘flaming’, ‘harassment’, ‘denigration’, ‘impersonation’, ‘outing and trickery’, ‘exclusion’, and ‘cyberstalking’ (cp. Willard).
• The discussions did not clarify whether “happy slapping” - a phenomenon that has started in the UK in late 2004 and that gets increasingly often reported from further European countries – is still a mere European problem.

Thread: Traditional face-to-face vs. new forms of bullying: Is there a difference?

• The discussion did not manage to resolve the question on whether there is a difference between traditional school bullying and cyberbullying or not. The discussions brought up two points of view: 
• Some participants pointed out that though many aspects are the same there are ‘significant differences’ between cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying.
• Other participants emphasised that “school bullying and cyber bullying are inherently tied together” and that cyberbullying can be regarded as “just a new tool that kids who bully can use to accomplish their goal of bullying another child at school”.
• When contrasted to face-to-face bullying the following specifics of cyberbullying were suggested (cp. Campbell): there are no safe places left for victims, there is a 24/7 aspect of cyber bullying, there is a wider audience in being bullied by technology, the power of the written word in harming is even greater than that of the spoken word as it can be read and re-read, the bully can be anonymous and cyber bullying is less detectable by adults than traditional or f-2-f bullying.
• In the course of the discussion the four criteria for traditional face-to-face bullying – “Intent to hurt”, “imbalance of power”, “repeated occurrence” and “the victim is unable to defend him/herself” – were applied to cyberbullying (cp. Campbell).  The discussions revealed that there were contradicting views on whether the four criteria for traditional bullying apply to cyberbullying or not (for details cp. the long version of the conference report).

Topic 2: Cyberbullying

Thread: Types of cyberbullying

• Cyberbullying can be defined as “being cruel to others by sending or posting harmful material or engaging in other forms of social cruelty using the Internet or other digital technologies” (cp. Willard). 
• Following Willard’s taxonomy (2006) cyberbullying can take different forms, including: flaming, harassment, denigration, impersonation, outing and trickery, exclusion, cyberstalking. This taxonomy was criticized by some participants as some of the forms mentioned do not meet the classical criteria of bullying as e.g. specified in Olweus’ definition of bullying.
• Other forms that according to some participants might be allocated to cyberbullying are bullying via cell phone as well as “happy slapping”.
• There are numerous countries that do not have appropriate terms for new forms of SBV like “cyberbullying” yet. There are several options on how such new forms of SBV can be addressed. The following suggestions have been made on how it can be dealt with:
  • Introducing the new concept so that everybody knows exactly what it is about
  • Using the term as an umbrella for more and more phenomena.
  • Trying to avoid the term at all and focus on the single phenomena that are included

Thread: The sources of cyberbullying - implications for our work

• When discussing the problem of cyberbullying it’s necessary to distinguish between factors which are common to face-to-face interaction and cyberspace as compared to factors which are specific only for cyberspace.
• Factors that cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying have in common are for instance: “Power struggles” and “social status positioning”. Cyberbullying is often connected to real world interactions (…) and therefore often becomes an extension of the real world power struggles and social status positioning that fuels much of the bullying behaviour.
• Factors that are specific to cyberbullying factors (and that amongst others have to do with the anonymity of the Internet) are for instance: invisibility, dissociation of consequences, role playing game, the power of the written word and the belittlement of the Internet (for details on each of this points cp. the full version of this report).

Topic 3: How to tackle the problem of cyberbullying

Thread: Tackling cyberbullying: the role of internet providers

• The roles and responsibilities of Internet providers for tackling bullying to a large extent are conditioned by local and international laws.
• In many countries Internet providers themselves are not responsible for the contents or the way their services are used by users. This and many other factors contribute to the fact that the Internet is a nice playground for bullies. 
• In order to increase the liability of their services (and because of national laws) some Internet providers try to delete harmful material from their web pages. Nevertheless, as most measures are rather insufficient it seems as if “we are always one step behind” when dealing with new forms of SBV using new technologies.
• Aiming at increasing the possibilities and resources of Internet providers to deal with bullying the following suggestions were made (cp. Willard): having clear policies prohibiting harmful speech; providing informational materials for youth, schools, and parents on web sites; making it very easy to file a complaint; establish an effective complaint process. Further ideas mentioned were related to the control access to some services (i.e. software controls, time limits).

Thread: Tackling cyberbullying - the role of parents

• There are several factors that make it difficult for parents to deal with cyberbullying: they are too busy; they by mistake assume that filtering software works (which clearly does not); kids can easily defeat any filtering system; parents often lack of the technological skills to assist their children; parents do not have enough information about how to respond especially on problems like cyberbullying.
• Although there are good and helpful websites that offer concrete advice for parents, most parents do only use them after problems have until something happens.
• Several strategies to get parent's attention were proposed: Start with parent's association at the school; carrying out small surveys to "demonstrate” the extent of the problem; offering workshops for parents; including information in school newsletters; offering more extensive information available in the school office and counselor's office and on the school's website.
• It was suggested that with respect to cyberbullying and parents different aspects have to be addressed: How to help children to reduce the potential harm for victimization; how to respond effectively to stop cyberbullying if one’s child is a victim; how to make sure one’s child is not engaging in cyberbullying; how to empower one’s child to speak up or provide help if he/she is a witness to cyberbullying.

Thread: Levels of intervention

• Starting the discussion a classification based on the following four basic components of intervention levels was suggested: parents, school, administration (governmental institutions), Internet.
• The discussion revealed that a specific emphasis should be on Internet providers as well as cell phone companies, as they have the resources to deal with cyberbullying events. A double-edged measure which some Internet providers are offering is the possibility to make groups and profiles "private" (restricted to known people). However, sometimes these private spaces turn in places where children are either bullying others or are the victims of bullying under the umbrella of privacy.

Regarding the role of parents, and the level of control that they should practice towards their children and the use of Internet, there were two complementary positions: 

• Parents should control their children's access to Internet.
• Parents shouldn't base their actions in control, but educative measures for their children that aim at teaching them appropriate ways of dealing with new technologies.
• Within school several groups should be included in the process of tackling cyberbullying such as teachers and other school staff, students and parents. A specific emphasis is on bystanders who have a high relevance to stop any type of bullying e.g. by demonstrating clearly to others that they don't approve it. In this context also the significance of reporting bullying events in the school and then offer an appropriate answer was mentioned.
• Concerning the targeted youth it was pointed out that they have to be taught how to respond effectively. Furthermore they have to be encouraged to report bullying incidents.

Topic 4: Other new forms and trends related to School Bullying and Violence

Thread: Other new forms and trends related to School Bullying and Violence

• In this final topic, the participants have focused their attention in other types of bullying and violence, such as homophobic bullying, racist bullying, violence amongst girls, school shootings, etc.
• Related to institutional heterosexism in our schools and homophobia it was proposed to do very serious inclusion work in our schools of lesbian, gay, bisexual and ‘trans’ people. In this context the website www.schools-out.org.uk was recommended.
• Special needs children are often a perfect blank of unscrupulous juveniles. This group is often affected by happy slapping and other forms of bullying.