Cyberbullying - Approaches in Europe

Helen Cowie and Pat Colliety

University of Surrey, United Kingdom

English

English

Case Studies in five countries, cyberbullying best practice guidance for educators, parents, children and young people, useful web sites and research references

Research

Policy Makers, Teachers, School Directors.

21 - 100 pages

This is web site is a European Project (Project N°
142237-LLP-1-2008-1-DE-LEONARDO-LMP) and covers a very wide range of important topics linked to cyberbullying. This is important because Cyberbullying is widely recognised in the UK and across Europe as an issue of serious concern. The report details the situation in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the UK as well as as well as providing a transnational analysis.

In addition the site details different intervention approaches in each of these countries and for this description we have selected the UK section for a more detailed analysis:

For the UK the report gives two case studies which illustrate the wide-ranging impact on young people, on their families, on teachers and on the whole-school ethos that cyberbullying on social networking sites can create, including the responsive actions which were taken.

The report then details the recommendations of the Byron Review (2008) which recommended that a priority focus of Child Internet Safety Strategy should be the development of a more effective regulation framweork which built on best practice, promoted transparency and provided families with the tools and reassurance they need for their children) and then goes on to say how the UK Goverment responded.

Best Practice Guidance is given for Educators, Parents and Children / Young People, including a list of helpful web sites. The authors also approached three of the major mobile phone service providers in the UK - Orange, T-Mobile and O2 and their responses and guidance are also given. Finally the report details research based guidnace for counteracting cyberbullying and these could be used for further research.

This is quite a comprehensive web site with lots of information about cyber bullying from across Europe, including a transnational comparison os the current situation and different approaches.

The case study examples highlight the impact which bullying can have and in the UK report we found the summary of the Byron Review (2008) to be helpful. In particular we support the suggestion that the creation of a safe IT environment ha sfour elements:

1) An infrastructure of whole site awareness, responsibilities, policies and procedures.
2) An effective range of technological tools
3) A comprehensive e-safety education programme
4) A review process that monitors the effectiveness of the first
three elements

We found the section on 'Provision of Guidance/Best Practice for Educators, Parents and Children/Young People to be helpful and the links to other sites are also very useful.

Our only criticism is that the site suggests that a Training Manual is available but we were unable to open the manual from the web site.

Accesed through the 'Intervention' tab on:
http://www.cybertraining-project.org/page.php?lang=En&page=5

Wilsthorpe Community School