Cyber-Bullying

Issues and Solutions for the School, the Classroom and the Home

Shaheen Shariff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134095377
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book looks in depth at the emerging issue of cyber-bullying. In this increasingly digital world cyber-bullying has emerged as an electronic form of bullying that is difficult to monitor or supervise because it often occurs outside the physical school setting and outside school hours on home computers and personal phones. These web-based and mobile technologies are providing young people with what has been described as: 'an arsenal of weapons for social cruelty'.

These emerging issues have created an urgent need for a practical book grounded in comprehensive scholarship that addresses the policy-vacuum and provides practical educational responses to cyber-bullying. Written by one of the few experts on the topic Cyber-Bullying develops guidelines for teachers, head teachers and administrators regarding the extent of their obligations to prevent and reduce cyber-bullying. The book also highlights ways in which schools can network with parents, police, technology providers and community organizations to provide support systems for victims (and perpetrators) of cyber-bullying.

Chapter 1
Cyberspace

Battleground or opportunity?

Teachers declare war on cyber-bullying!

(Brown, 2007)

School war against the bullies brings academic success!

(Asthana, 2007)

Prof raises alarm about cyber-bullying!

(Lampert, 2006)

Curb ‘cyber-bullies’ prof urges!

(Bohn, 2006)

Internet gives teenage bullies weapons to wound from afar!

(Harmon, 2004)

Introduction

Until very recently, the mention of the word ‘cyber-bullying’ conjured images in people’s minds of a computer game with ‘Star Wars-type’ characters engaging in battle. It was difficult to convince people that this topic would attract much global attention and soon arrive at the forefront of public policy debates in education and parenting. That time has come. The issue of cyber-bullying often tops the agendas of government officials, educators, parents, civil libertarians and legal practitioners. The rapid advancement of cellular phones and Internet technologies has opened up new and infinite spaces that young people can explore with fewer restrictions. If we are to believe the above media headlines, ironically, the issue of cyber-bullying has become a battle of sorts in cyberspace. It appears that students, civil liberties advocates and some parents defend student rights to free expression in cyberspace, whereas educators, teachers’ unions, other parents and government officials want to restrict them.

The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to the key issues that inform the heart of this debate or ‘battle’ and provide guidelines for schools, parents and other influential stakeholders, to address the emerging policy vacuum. My book presents international profiles of traditional and cyber-bullying and draws attention to the tensions that arise as a result of intersecting power relationships among stakeholders, all of whom are significantly impacted by emerging forms of student online expression. My goal is to raise awareness of the key dilemmas that confront schools, students and their parents, with a view to encourage reconceptualization of cyber-bullying, towards the development of proactive, educational and legally defensible responses. In much the same way as a painter might take time out from painting to have his eyes checked and his lenses readjusted so that the images he paints on his canvas become less blurred, so, too, I invite readers to take time out to readjust their assumptions and perceptions relating to the issues and reconsider them from the unique perspectives ventured here. The Internet and digital literacies have become part of young people’s lives, their social relationships and their learning. I hope that the approaches I present in this book will facilitate this learning in school and home environments, both physical and virtual, that are conducive to children’s well-being, learning and development as civil minded and socially responsible, contributing citizens of a global society. Young people cannot contribute in positive ways if there is a battle raging all around them.

Battles in cyberspace

This battle is consistently reflected in the media headlines that now appear regularly, giving the impression that one is reading about a Star Wars episode in cyberspace, with the Internet as the starship and kids as alien enemies. Consider the following headlines: ‘A gift from the devil: Worry about online activities’ (Soloyon, 2005); ‘Cyber-bullying: The Internet is the latest weapon in a bully’s arsenal’ (Leishman, 2002); ‘Internet gives teenage bullies weapons to wound from afar’ (Harmon, 2004); and ‘Cyber-bullying blighting our lives’ (Reading Evening Post, 2006). These examples are a drop in the ocean of headlines that proliferate in news reports, which have global reach through the Internet. Most reports are framed to highlight the dangers and not the potential of online communication, often describing online tools as ‘weapons’.

The news reports, as their headlines suggest, focus less on why kids might be using online communications networks as weapons to wound than on the dangers of using them. If we look at the headlines more closely, we discover that there is also a separate ‘battle’ taking place. This other war uses a different genre of ‘weapons’, commonly known to adults as ‘policies’ and ‘legislation’. Consider the following headlines: ‘Teachers declare war on cyber-bullying’ (Brown, 2007); ‘School war against the bullies brings academic success’ (Asthana, 2007); ‘Regina bylaw to target cyber-bullies’ (CBC News, 2006); ‘Web giants like You Tube are being urged to get tough with the cyber-bullies that use their sites to make pupils’ and teachers’ lives a misery’ (Goff, 2007). A school Dean’s article is entitled ‘Foiling Cyberbullies in the New Wild West’ (Franek, 2006). (Emphasis has been added in all examples.)

It seems ironical that these sensational headlines create a fear of online technologies, but focus on ‘fighting’, ‘curbing’, ‘controlling’ and ‘clamping-down’ on the ‘cyber-bullies’. The headlines refer to children, teenagers and young adults who appear to be ensnared by evil technologies. It is even stranger that so many media reports sensationalize and indicate support for an adversarial approach by educators to control and manage young people’s online expression.

Worthy weapons?

The ‘weapons’ being used in attempts to control cyber-bullying, consist of lobbying by teachers’ unions, parents and school administrators who want their governments to implement laws and policies that censor social communication tools such as Facebook and YouTube from being accessed at schools. Some call for bans on cellular and mobile phones that have photographic and text-messaging capabilities. Others want to restrict computer use while children are at school; impose school board monitored firewalls; and enforce zero-tolerance policies that include suspensions and, in some cases expulsion, as deterrents to bullying (Education Act, R.S.O., 1990). In the southern United States, some governments have also declared cyber-bullying serious enough to come under the umbrella of ‘homeland security’ legislation (Shariff and Johnny, 2007b).

Two of the headlines at the start of this chapter, namely, ‘Prof raises alarm about cyber-bullying’ (Lampert, 2006) and ‘Curb ‘cyber-bullies’ prof urges’ (Bohn, 2006) refer to a public presentation that I gave at McGill University in February 2006. These national headlines took me by surprise the following day. My talk for educators had called for responses to cyber-bullying that are grounded in educational and non-arbitrary, proactive responses. I do not want to raise alarm bells but I certainly want to raise awareness. The last thing I wish to do is make people fearful. As I have discovered, the media does an adequate job of that.

What drives this ‘battle’?

The media headlines discussed above do not clarify what we are fighting. If the technology is dangerous, then why are we clamping down on the ‘cyber-bullies’ instead? In this book, I want to examine carefully the notion that violence can be controlled, banned, censored, fire-walled, managed or snuffed out in a contemporary and globalized world using violent or intolerant responses (zero-tolerance and suspensions). What do we seek to achieve as a society in our current responses to technology use among young people? Is there really an ‘enemy’? Do there have to be scapegoats, and does society attach unrealistic notions of danger to the Internet or to youngsters who engage in online teasing and torment of peers and authority figures? Can cyberspace be ‘controlled’, and, indeed, can the communications that take place using electronic tools and media be ‘managed’ or ‘supervised’?

There are two aspects to the issue of cyber-bullying that I plan to address in this book.

Peer-to-peer cyber-bullying

The first, which is less controversial, involves cyber-bullying among peers. Although this aspect of the issue has, in and of itself drawn a significant amount of media attention, there have been fewer vocal calls by educators for strong action. Cyber-bullying among students has been assumed to be an extension of traditional bullying that has nothing to do with school responsibilities because it generally takes place from home computers and personal cellphones. There is disagreement among parents and schools as to who is responsible for monitoring and preventing children and young people from bullying their peers online. As I will explain when I present the profiles of traditional and cyber-bullying, there is always a power differential when bullying takes place. In peer-to-peer bullying (physical or virtual), the power differential is at the level of young people, where a certain number of peers have a power advantage over their target(s).

Anti-authority cyber-expression

The second form of student expression, also commonly referred to as ‘cyber-bullying’, has recently attracted substantially more attention. There have been stronger calls for action from school and government officials, teachers and teachers’ unions, because this form of cyber-bullying involves postings by students on social networking sites. Although most young people use social networking sites responsibly, a number of students have used them to demean and put down their teachers or school administrators, joke about them, modify photographs and invite insults and comments by students. There is disagreement among students (supported by civil libertarians and some parents) and school authorities as to whether this form of online expression by students constitutes ‘cyber-bullying’. While the upcoming chapters engage in analysis of this debate, I have included it in this book as a form of cyber-bullying because it has attracted so much attention and concern from educators and policymakers. The power differential involved in this form of student online communication is reversed. The ‘victims’ of such expression are teachers, school principles and college and university professors (authority figures), who are disempowered because they have little control over who sees the online comments about them. Because the jury is still out as to whether this form of student expression constitutes cyber-‘bullying’, I also refer to it as ‘anti-authority cyber-expression’ or ‘anti-authority online expression’.

‘Raveger, Raveger’

My first experience with cyber-bullying began with an email from ‘Raveger, Raveger [sic]’. The email was sent to our daughter Selina (pseudonym), when she was about 15, in Grade 11 at a high school in British Columbia, Canada. We came home one afternoon and found her pale and frightened, which was unusual for this normally feisty teenager. She handed us a printout of the email which read:

• You don’t know me …
  But I know you …
  I’ve been watching you at school …
  And if you don’t want to die … I’d sleep with one eye open
  Down on your knees, bitch!
  Raveger, Raveger
• (Shariff, 2001)

As a parent, I was concerned about Selina’s safety. Was this a paedophile? Was it an adult at school? If a student was involved, did he know her walking route home from school? The reference to watching her at school brought the threat into the realm of the physical school environment, despite the fact that it was sent over the weekend from a home computer. School police liaison officers were unsuccessful in tracing the email, and our efforts to trace the source of the email through the ISP provider met a brick wall. At first there was no response to our calls and emails. When eventually contacted, an ISP manager explained that he could not shut down the email source to protect the client’s free expression rights.

A male classmate eventually confessed that he and three others had sent the email from his home computer. Once the boy learned police were involved, he owned up to being coerced by the primary instigator, Mike (pseudonym). Apparently Mike had wanted to date Selina, who had refused his advances, and he sought revenge through email. Though school administrators were provided with the perpetrators’ names, the boys were not disciplined because the email was not sent from school. Consequently, the harassment continued at school, where Selina was stalked and verbally bullied by the boys, who continued to go by the name of ‘Raveger’. During one classroom project, the boys insisted on having Selina join their group. The teacher saw no problem with that, becoming impatient at Selina’s reluctance to join them. Selina burst into tears. Once the problem was explained, the teacher confessed to having no prior knowledge of the incident, despite the Principal’s commitment to us that he would inform all Selina’s teachers about the threats the four boys had perpetrated.

Little did the ‘Raveger’ boys know how often the words contained in their email would be repeated in educational contexts—at conference presentations, in published journal articles and book chapters, in media reports (Shariff and Strong-Wilson, 2005) and, now, in the first chapter of a book on cyber-bullying. ‘Raveger’ helped me launch a career dedicated in large part to researching and addressing the complex issues of student communication in cyberspace, the spill-over effect in physical space, and the blurred boundaries of student safety, privacy and free expression. More importantly, it helped me launch research into the extent of school responsibilities and those of parents, policymakers and law enforcement agents to intervene when schoolmates engage in bullying outside school hours, on home computers or personal cellphones. Although this email was sent eight years ago, the issues it raised continue to challenge parents, school administrators and teachers worldwide, as technology use among pre-teens and adolescents flourishes. Ravager sets the stage for discussion of some key dilemmas that have surfaced with increased proliferation of new technologies among young people, and that continue to become significantly more complex as innovative social communication tools such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, LinkdIn, Orkut and rapidly advancing cellphone technologies become established as contemporary modes of communication among the younger generation.

I believe it is important to provide readers with a sense of the broader societal context, which highlights the range of stakeholder influences such as the power of the media, government officials, school boards, school administrators, technology corporations, teachers and parents in shaping how we conceptualize, perceive and respond to technology and digital literacies. We ought to critically question whether we should be controlling to such a great extent what children learn in the home, at school and online. Alternatively, we need to consider how we can empower them, through engaging educational endeavours that develop respect and trust and enable informed and thoughtful decisions when they use technologies. I believe that adult mindsets that emphasize control of behaviour over mentorship and guidance result in ineffective policies and practices. These, in turn, bring out the forms of expression young people adopt to assert their developing identities, sense of space, privacy and security. It becomes a vicious cycle because our responses to children’s actions and expressions online determine the extent to which they are empowered to take responsibility and leadership in their own growth, learning and social interactions, or whether they decide to break rules, hack through firewalls and search for independent spaces where adults cannot intervene. I suggest that the way in which online conversations and dialogues are defined, understood and responded to may also shape children’s actions and reactions in a particular space and time, depending on environmental influences, past experiences and biological triggers. Electronic space can be perceived as complicating the issues. Alternatively, it can be viewed as providing opportunities that open up young people’s worlds. The mindset with which we approach technologies makes all the difference (boyd and Jenkins, 2006; Lankshear and Knobel, 2005). Although rules have their place in schools, officials who enforce those rules might want to apply some flexibility in certain contexts. For people who do not have a lot of experience with technologies, inflexible rules can cause considerable problems. Consider the following situation that almost cost an inexperienced substitute teacher her freedom.

In a controversial case involving Julie Amero, an American substitute teacher in Connecticut, Ms Amero was charged and convicted of accessing pornography on a classroom computer and allowing students to view it. Students had previously accessed a pornographic site and triggered a virus that kept bringing up pornographic pop-up screens, much to their amusement.

Amero maintained, with the support of academics and technology experts (Willard, 2007), that she was innocent and did not purposely access the porn site. She tried to explain that she simply switched on the classroom computer, and a pop-up screen for a pornography web site repeatedly surfaced through a ‘mousetrap’ trigger. According to Willard, this trigger is caused by ‘malware’–a virus that lurks in the background and is designed to kick in when certain pornography sites are accessed either purposely or by mistake. Julie argued that the children could have accessed the web site that set off the trigger. In some schools, teachers are not allowed to turn off computers. Therefore Julie, trying to obey school rules, turned the screen away from their view and went to seek help. Regardless of the rules, perhaps a more experienced teacher would have turned off the computer to get rid of the trigger and then sought help. As a result of leaving the classroom with the pornographic site on the computer screen, some of the students viewed the web site, and she was subsequently charged. After six appeals and enormous public outcry, Ms Amero was acquitted and released from a sentence that would have committed her to forty years in jail—the penalty under Connecticut’s S. 53–21 of the General Penal Code on Risk of Injury to a Minor.

In this situation, the school rules disallowing teachers from turning off the computer exacerbated the problem. This is why my objectives in this book include a review of the emerging complexities of cyber-bullying for teachers, schools, parents and policymakers generally. I want to bring a more human element into examination of some of the policy, rule-making and definitional challenges related to cyber-bullying a...