As I mentioned in my cyberbullying and sexting comments at the National Crime Prevention Council Circle of Respect event two weeks ago, “social norming” continues to bear relevance for dealing with cyberbullying at schools, and I’d like to flesh it out some more since I am a big fan of the concept.  Basically, youth tend to do what others are doing - largely in order to fit in, as they try to figure out who they are and what they stand for.  As they survey the landscape of trends in behaviors and attitudes, they pick up on what is seemingly accepted, endorsed, and done among their peer group.  This influences them consciously or subconsciously, and they then naturally tend to jump “on board” and act similarly in thought, speech, or action.  For example, if an adolescent high school freshmen is told he can’t hang out with friends after Friday night football games because that’s when “everyone” parties and gets drunk, he might begin to view that behavior as commonplace and therefore acceptable.  He may therefore be more inclined to do the same, since it seems “normal” and “known” behavior.

How does this related to reducing online harassment among elementary, middle, and high school students?  Social norming has to do with modifying the environment, or culture within a school, so that appropriate behaviors are not only encouraged, but perceived widely to be the norm.  That is, schools must work to create a climate in which responsible use of Facebook and instant messaging programs (for example), is “what we do around here” and “just how it is at our school and among our students.”  This can occur by focusing attention on the majority of youth who do utilize computers and cell phones in acceptable ways.  If I told you that one in five teenagers are cyberbullied, you wouldn’t focus on spreading that fact around your student body.  Rather, you would reframe and reconceptualize that research finding, and then create cool and relevant messaging strategies emphasizing that the vast majority of your students are using Internet technologies with integrity, discretion, and wisdom, which would hopefully motivate or induce the remainder to get “on board.”  Ideally, the remainder would desire to fit in, would desire to be like everyone else, and would feel an informal compulsion to stop cyberbullying others and start doing the right thing.  Based on this, you can also see how social norming can be used to address sexting.  You can also see how the shaping of social norms is directly related to modifying the overall school climate or culture.

Spending too much time painting cyberbullying in alarmist colors may encourage more youth to act in similar ways, since those youth will perceive the act as “normal” and that “everyone is doing it.”  Are you doing social norming at your school?  In what ways has it worked?  In what ways has it not been as successful as you would have liked? The Cyberbullying Research Center is actively studying its utility, and will keep you updated on what we find.

I’ve recently discussed the susceptibility of youth with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) to be cyberbullied, outlining a number of reasons that contribute to such victimization.  When it comes to suggestions as to how we can help these kids, a few things stand out in my mind.

First, it is really important to try to understand exactly what is wrong - why the Aspie is being bullied, and how it makes him or her feel.  We also need to realize that what may seem normal to us - in terms of social interaction - is not normal to AS kids.  We have to venture into their definition of “normalcy” to fully empathize with how they are struggling.  The traditional ways that we help non-AS youth may not bear much fruit when working with AS youth, just like it is useless to implement multicolored lights on an instrument panel when the operator is color-blind.  Aspies receive social signals but cannot decode their meaning with any beneficial level of reliability.  They have what could be considered subjective blindness, and it is not a fault of theirs - it is simply how they are.

Personally speaking, I have found that Aspies tend not to ask for help, not because they prefer isolation or independence, but because it does not naturally occur to them that another person will have a different perspective, different experience/knowledge, and thus might find a different or better solution.  Encourage them to tell you how they are feeling, even though they may not respond.  If they can’t answer directly, perhaps they will share their thoughts on how the same instance of cyberbullying might make another person feel.  That might clue you in to the emotions they are wrestling with.

When you are trying to share advice or suggestions of prevention and response, repeat your message often for reinforcement and heavily use logical explanations.  It may be wise to create and use simple flowcharts to depict human behavior.  These can show actions, the way in which the actions affect others, and the way in which others’ responses then affect the subject, to aid their decision-making processes.  For example, “if I do X, it will cause effect Y on other people, which will cause them to respond to me with Z”.

Finally, when working with Aspie cyberbullying victims, it may be useful to jointly analyze stories, characters, plots and motivation in fiction, to point out tropes and story cues, and to figure out why characters act as they do.  Also, try using comic books or comic strips - which often convey some of the story through characters’ emotion-laden expressions, but in simplified “cartooned” art that is easier to comprehend.  Comic strips with humor that relate to real life situations are especially good; they teach typical motivations, reading faces, understanding humor, decision-making, and coping/response mechanisms all at once.

Let us know of your successes and failures.  We are especially interested in this population of vulnerable youth, and want to all we can to help.

This article from British Columbia refers to a high school principal who bought a cell phone signal jammer from an online dealer in China in order to thwart students from using their phones at school in violation of district policy.  First off, hats off to the resourcefulness of the principal in this situation - even though what he did was later deemed unlawful.  He was probably fed up with abuse and misuse of cell phones on his campus, and his decision may have been prompted by cases that severely compromised the learning environment he was trying to create.  It’s disheartening, though, that it came to this - that educational efforts, deterrent strategies, formal policies in place, and vigilant monitoring and sanctioning did not decrease the problem enough.  I’m not sure of the extent to which they were implemented.  Students are going to use cell phones at school if there is not a complete prohibition against it (and likely even still unless the accompanying penalties are heavy).  Secondly, maybe we can reduce the amount of texting students do between each other during the school day.  That said, we’re finding that parents are often contributing to the problem.  Parents are so used to reaching their children easily and quickly through cell phones.  This convenience is extremely valued, and even if you request them to relay messages through the school front office, it probably is not going to happen.  This is further reason why parents should perhaps formally agree to a policy at the beginning of the school year detailing the penalties their child will face if caught using their phone on campus - and maybe that will dissuade them from contributing to the problem.  Better yet - and as we’ve mentioned in a previous post - make it so the parents are meaningfully inconvenienced when their child breaks the rules.

Here’s a recent query I received from an educator who I have worked with in the past.  I thought her question and my response would be of interest to others so I am posting both here.  Does your school district have a policy regarding cyberbullying or Facebook?  How about cyberbullying on Facebook?

Question: “The reason for my email is that we have recently had issues with Facebook brought to our attention by parents.  Cyberbullying is taking place among our 8th graders and it seems to be affecting the classroom environment.  The principal and I are wondering if you have any sample policies that might help us as we are looking to establish some type of policy quickly to address this problem.”

Response: I am sorry to hear that you are facing problems with Facebook.  We don’t have a sample policy per se, but we suggest elements that you might want to include in your policy.  The problem really isn’t isolated to Facebook.  That is, you don’t need a “Facebook Policy.”  If you tried to be that specific, you would have to update your policy every 6 months or so as different Web sites come in and out of popularity.  You just need a general policy that will cover the kinds of behaviors that are detrimental to your school environment.  You have our book, and you should definitely revisit chapter 5 - especially pages 118-126 to see how your existing policy could be improved based on these suggestion.  Essentially, your policy needs to state that any behavior that disrupts the school environment is subject to discipline.

As I mentioned in my presentation to your folks, you might want to see if you can convene a group of staff, parents, and even students to review your existing policy and to make recommendations for updating it based on these new behaviors that are emerging.  This shouldn’t be a very large group - perhaps 2 or 3 members from each of the above groups - otherwise it may be difficult to get everyone to agree.  This group can then inform your school’s overall approach.  They can make recommendations additions to the policy and for appropriate disciplinary sanctions based on violations of the policy.  I know you are looking for a quick fix (aren’t we all!), but taking the time to develop comprehensive policy, and involving parents and students, will yield dividends in the long run.  It will be easier to sell the policy to parents if key parents are involved in the process.  And the students can help to make sure the policy is comprehensive and realistic.

By the way, in general, if you can demonstrate that the behaviors are substantially disrupting your school environment, even though those behaviors are occurring away from school, the courts have upheld disciplinary sanctions.  And that legal perspective is essentially directed at public schools.  Since you are a private school, you have much more latitude in basically doing what you think is appropriate.  That said, it is still important to have a good policy that parents and even students can get behind.

One of the questions we field sometimes involves how private schools differ from public schools in their response to instances of cyberbullying and student misuse of technology.  A case from a private Michigan college illustrates the general distinction that we’ve seen.  In this situation, a 19-year-old male was placed on six-month probation after being accused of posting a crude sexual message on Facebook about his ex-girlfriend.  This punishment will force him to wait a year to continue his education at the same institution.  Largely speaking, private schools can exercise much discretion in these cases, allowing them to enact a penalty that may seem unreasonable and without complete merit (in this situation, the school authorities do not have incontrovertible evidence that the accused actually committed the act - he claims that his Facebook account password was stolen and exploited towards this end).   It is interesting that college administrators referenced integrity and values when providing some reasoning behind the sanction.  When we have worked with private schools (and colleges), reference is often made to a general honor code to which students informally or formally agree - and offline or online peer harassment is clearly a violation to this honor code and therefore warrants some measure of discipline.  I believe this is the best way to go.  I’m going to generalize a bit here, but we’ve found that sometimes in public schools students thumb their noses at the rules and it is often perceived as “cool” to break them.  In private schools, however, there tends to be a larger shared perception among the student body that the honor code is something to be respected, and it is definitely “not cool” to transgress it.  Not cool at all.   I like that.  I wish we had better success promoting such a worldview in the public school system.