Presentation at XXth Workshop Aggression
Dr Magdalena Marczak presented a talk entitled A qualitative exploration of the statutory and voluntary bodies’ involvement in cyberbullying prevention and management in the UK at the XXth Workshop Aggression, University of Applied Sciences, Upper Austria in Linz.
In November 2015, Dr Magdalena Marczak presented a talk entitled A qualitative exploration of the statutory and voluntary bodies’ involvement in cyberbullying prevention and management in the UK at the XXth Workshop Aggression, University of Applied Sciences, Upper Austria in Linz.
Cyberbullying refers to bullying and harassment of others using new electronic technologies, the most popular being the internet and mobile phone (Patchin and Hinduja, 2006; Kowalski et al., 2008; Shariff, 2008; Smith et al., 2008; Sourander, et al., 2010). For young people the internet is an everyday means of communication and information gathering (Williams and Guerra, 2007).
This study aimed to investigate the policy-makers’ and non-profit organizations’ involvement in cyberbullying prevention and management in the United Kingdom. This was explored using a qualitative method of enquiry. In total 4 participants from the voluntary sector and statutory organisations involved with children and youths focusing on a specific area like anti-bullying or internet safety participated in the semi-structured interviews. Six codebooks were identified from the analysis of the data based on the interviews with staff from non-profit organisations and with policy makers, as well as the documents related to cyberbullying received from or shown by the participants and available in the public domain. They combined a wide range of issues, from opportunities of online learning to risks such as Internet privacy concerns, taking place not only among young people and school staff but which are also a part of agenda for scholars, policy makers and the public at large.
The wider societal factors that shape attitudes and skills of young people can be included under the broad categories of ‘culture’ and ‘education’. Policy makers indirectly influence the Internet usage patterns, attitudes and ICT skills levels of young people in a given country. Implications for future practice in education settings are discussed with reference to the findings that in the UK this issue has gained priority on the policy agenda.