Cyberbullying Prevention in the Opinion of Teachers

Abstract

The paper sets out to present the opinions of teachers regarding the implementation of cyberbullying prevention programmes for children and youth. Such perspective is to facilitate a better understanding of the role of the prevention of Internet-mediated risky behaviours in the school environment. The text was created using the interpretative paradigm of the qualitative pedagogical research. The study was conducted using focus group technique with over a dozen of teachers participating. The text was written as part of the project SELI-Smart Ecosystem for Learning and Inclusion, in the second half of 2019. The data collected showed that cyberbullying prevention is a complex phenomenon and requires active engagement not only from the teachers but also from the third parties, parents and students themselves. The teachers who took part in the focus group listed a range of protective factors related to the elimination of cyberbullying: increasing digital literacy, developing universal skills (communication, personal culture, respect to others, critical thinking), support from the police and related institutions, building family relationships, engaging in leisure activities. The teachers agree that rapidly developing technology outdates the knowledge of people involved in media education, making lifelong education necessary.

How are teachers being attacked online? On cyberbullying and cyberaggression that targets school educators from the student’s perspective

“…As stated by Frolova et al (2019), this type of cyberbullying usually originates for a variety of reasons, such as disagreements about academic performance, personal conflicts, or differences in educational expectations. To reduce these behaviors, it is crucial to implement preventive programs that encourage positive collaboration between all agents in the educational community to combat such problems (González Sodis & Leiva Olivencia, 2023;Siddiqui & Schultze-Krumbholz, 2023;Torgal et al, 2023), where open dialogue is encouraged (Cassidy et al, 2018), to establish effective communication channels and educate stakeholders about respect and the importance of empathy (Wnęk-Gozdek et al, 2019).…”