Tag Archives: cyberbullying

Social Influences on Cyberbullying Behaviors Among Middle and High School Students

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in January 23, 2013 at 5:23 pm.

(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

Sameer and I wrote a paper that was recently published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence that examines the influence of peers, parents, and educators on the cyberbullying behaviors of middle and high school students. It has long been known that adolescent behaviors (both positive and negative) are largely influenced by significant others. Our paper basically re-affirms that finding as it relates to cyberbullying.

Specifically, we found that “…students who reported that many of their friends had bullied others (at school, using a computer, and using a cell phone) were significantly more likely to have also reported that they too had cyberbullied others.” At the same time, we also found that those “who reported that a sanction was likely from their parents or school were significantly less likely to report involvement.” The importance of peers was particularly prominent. Students who reported that “most” or “all” of their friends had bullied others in the previous 6 months were nearly 17 times more likely themselves to bully others, compared to those who said that none or only a few of their friends were bullies. But it is also noteworthy that students who felt that a sanction was likely from parents or teachers were significantly less likely to report that they had cyberbullied others.

Here is the abstract:

Cyberbullying is a problem affecting a meaningful proportion of youth as they embrace online communication and interaction. Research has identified a number of real-world negative ramifications for both the targets and those who bully. During adolescence, many behavioral choices are influenced and conditioned by the role of major socializing agents, including friends, family, and adults at school. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which peers, parents, and educators influence the cyberbullying behaviors of adolescents. To explore this question, data were analyzed from a random sample of approximately 4,400 sixth through twelfth grade students (49 % female; 63 % nonwhite) from thirty-three schools in one large school district in the southern United States. Results indicate that cyberbullying offending is associated with perceptions of peers behaving similarly, and the likelihood of sanction by adults. Specifically, youth who believed that many of their friends were involved in bullying and cyberbullying were themselves more likely to report cyberbullying behaviors. At the same time, respondents who believed that the adults in their life would punish them for cyberbullying were less likely to participate. Implications for schools and families are discussed with the goal of mitigating this behavior and its negative outcomes among adolescent populations.

The full paper is available here. We also have a brief fact sheet that summarizes the findings which is available here.

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, parents, peers, school, teacher.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

(4) comments

Anthony Zeno v. Pine Plains Central School District

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in December 20, 2012 at 1:56 pm.

(13 votes, average: 4.15 out of 5)

Loading ...

A new bullying case has emerged from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (New York) which demonstrates that schools could potentially be held liable for monetary damages even in cases where they do take steps to respond to harassment that occurs in school. The point this particular case makes is that a school response needs to be effective to be sufficient.

According to court documents, Anthony Zeno moved to Stissing Mountain High School mid-way through his freshmen year (in 2005). Very early on he was inundated with threats and subject to racial slurs from students at the predominantly white school (Anthony is half-white and half-Latino). When his mother reported the first incident to the school, principal John Francis Howe reportedly told her that: “this is a small town and you don’t want to start burning your bridges.” So the harassment continued. Anthony repeatedly reported incidents to the school and his mother contacted the District superintendent and school board. Nobody at the District level responded. In some cases individual students were warned and even suspended, but the behaviors continued.

The incidents escalated in his sophomore year with students threatening him in the cafeteria and on the football field. “Zeno is dead” and “Zeno will die” was scrawled on the school bathroom walls. In multiple occasions he was threatened with specific references to a lynching. Again, the school responded by suspending the students for individual cases and even moved one of the aggressors to another school. Principal Howe asked staff to keep an eye on Anthony.

Despite the racially motivated nature of the threats, the school’s Title IX compliance officer did not investigate the allegations (she is also responsible for enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race). During Anthony’s sophomore year, the school contracted with an individual to provide information to students, staff, and parents on bullying and harassment, but the program did not include any substantive discussion of racial discrimination. In his junior year, the school hired someone to train faculty and staff on racial diversity and stereotypes and to conduct student focus groups and surveys. No actual training was conducted that year however.

The incidents continued into his senior year. Though less frequent, they reportedly became more serious. According to the lawsuit, in one incident “a student called Anthony’s sister a ‘slut’ and threatened to kick Anthony’s ‘black ass.’” There was a fight and one of Anthony’s friends was choked to the point of losing consciousness.

Because of the daily harassment, Anthony struggled with his academic work and fell behind. He didn’t have enough credits to graduate with a full diploma so he settled for an “IEP diploma” which allowed him access to some community colleges but would make him ineligible for the military, trade schools, or more comprehensive post-secondary education. He didn’t think he could endure another year or two at that school.

In July of 2007 Anthony sued the school, alleging discrimination based on his race. He argued that he was denied educational benefits as a result of the racial harassment. The trial began in March of 2010 and a jury found that the School District had violated Anthony’s civil rights under Title VI and awarded him $1.25 million. A subsequent district court ruling reduced that award to $1 million plus attorney’s fees.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the earlier ruling, agreeing that the school was deliberately indifferent to the harassment that was taking place, even though punishment was meted out after most incidents. The court pointed out that victims “do not have a right to specific remedial measures” (p. 26), but noted that “the sufficiency of a response, however, must be considered” (p. 34). Even though the school District “suspended every student who was identified as harassing Anthony” (p. 33), the behaviors became increasingly severe. As such, the court agreed that the school should have done more.

What educators should take away from this ruling is that once they learn of harassment taking place, they have an obligation to do everything in their power to ensure that it stops. Simply disciplining the student who did the bullying, without following up to make sure that it actually stops and that the person targeted is safe, is not enough. Applying discipline and implementing new programming is only sufficient to the extent that the behaviors desist. Citing Wills v. Brown University the court stated: “[E]vidence of an inadequate response is pertinent to show fault and causation where the plaintiff is claiming that she was harassed or continued to be harassed after the inadequate response.” The jury in Anthony’s case found, and the appellate court agreed, that “the District’s additional remedial actions were little more than halfhearted measures” (p. 38).

Implementing a particular response without concern for its efficacy evidently is not enough to protect a school from a claim of deliberate indifference. Responses to bullying need to be targeted (focusing on the nature of the harassment), comprehensive (long-term recurring programming vs. a one-time brief presentation), and effective (the bullying has to stop or at least be reduced significantly in frequency and seriousness). Due diligence involves more than just applying an immediate response – it demands that the response move behaviors in the desired direction.

Tags: cyberbullying, policy, response, school.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

No comments

Amanda Todd, Cyberbullying, and Suicide

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in October 30, 2012 at 9:56 am.

(44 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)

Loading ...

By now, most people are familiar with the Amanda Todd tragedy. The 15-year old from British Columbia, Canada posted a cry-for-help video on YouTube using note cards to detail the torment she endured from classmates and strangers in the wake of a revealing (topless) video chat photo being released to her Facebook friends and others by an extorting stranger. She got depressed and anxious and experimented with drugs and alcohol. She cut herself and had at least two previous attempts at suicide. People commented on her Facebook page that she should try harder to kill herself: “I hope she dies this time and isn’t so stupid.” Unfortunately, on October 10th, 2012, she did.

Many students have written out note cards and taken to YouTube to tell their story (Alye, Jessica, Kegan, Kate, and perhaps most famously, Jonah). These are often referred to as “If You Really Knew Me” or “secrets” videos and feature young people exposing their souls in a very public, but still somewhat private way. I mean, the reality is that most of these videos are viewed only a handful of times and very few have garnered as much attention as Amanda Todd’s has. My fear is that others who are struggling with the common (and not-so-common) trials that accompany the teenage years will feel that suicide is the only way to bring full attention to their struggles.

My heart breaks when I read story after story of teens who felt suicide was the only answer to their situation. Just a few days ago a 15-year old Staten Island, New York girl jumped into the path of an oncoming train (to her death) after apparently being “tortured” by other students. Earlier in the week she tweeted: “I can’t. I’m done. I give up.” Less than a month ago it was a 16-year old East Hampton, New York student who ended his life after being bullied, reportedly due to his sexual orientation. There are just too many of these horrendous stories to keep up with.

Research has shown that experience with bullying (whether as a target or bully) is linked to heightened risk for suicide. A recent review of 41 incidents that were reported in the media where cyberbullying appeared to be the cause of a teen’s suicide showed that experience with bullying was just one of many factors that likely led to the teen’s death. This finding is consistent with what we have found in our work over the years. In our paper published in 2010, we found a small, but statistically significant increase in risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts among students who were bullied or cyberbullied (and among those who did the bullying or cyberbullying). But the experience with bullying (in whatever form) explained only a small amount of the variation in suicidal behaviors. That is, there are other factors that we weren’t able to account for in that study that were also related to suicide. There are, to be sure, many challenges that teens are confronting on a day-to-day basis, and often these pile up to the point where some simply cannot take them any longer. In our paper, we concluded that “it is unlikely that experience with cyberbullying by itself leads to youth suicide. Rather, it tends to exacerbate instability and hopelessness in the minds of adolescents already struggling with stressful life circumstances.”

If you or someone you know is in such a place, please get help. Talk to an adult you can trust. Please. If you are the adult, connect with each of the students, children, or other young people in your life in a way that enables them to come to you in times of crisis. You could be their savior. Visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for emergency help. If only Amanda, or someone who cared about her, would have done the same.

Amanda Todd

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, school, suicide, youtube.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

(8) comments

School Climate and Cyberbullying: An Empirical Link

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in October 24, 2012 at 3:08 pm.

(12 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)

Loading ...

Our latest book School Climate 2.0: Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Class at a Time argues that one promising way to prevent cyberbullying and other problematic online behaviors from occurring is to develop a positive climate at school where students feel safe and cared about. There is ample evidence to affirm the power of a positive climate in preventing a host of problems at school, including student and teacher victimization, delinquency, and disorder. We wondered if a positive climate at school could also serve as a protective factor in reducing involvement in cyberbullying, sexting, and other high-tech misbehaviors that largely occur away from school.

As a preliminary test of this hypothesis, we analyzed data from a random sample of approximately 4,400 middle and high school students from 33 schools in a large school district in the United States. We asked students to tell us their thoughts about the quality of the climate at their school and also asked them to report their experiences with cyberbullying. With regard to the quality of the climate, we specifically asked students to tell us the extent to which they agreed with the following statements:

I feel safe at my school.
I feel that teachers at my school care about me.
I feel that teachers at my school really try to help me succeed.
I feel that students at my school trust and respect the teachers.
I feel that teachers at my school are fair to all students.
I feel that teachers at my school take bullying very seriously.

Students responded to each of these questions using a 4-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (3). Scores from the six questions were averaged for each student, and each school was given an average score based on responses from a random sample of students in that school. School climate scores ranged from 1.41 to 2.16, and the three groups were created by looking at natural breaks, which placed roughly one-third of the schools in each group. Average climate scores for each group were low (1.55), medium (1.71), and high (1.90).

For cyberbullying, we used our standard measure which first defined cyberbullying as “when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like.” We then asked about nine different types of cyberbullying behaviors (including pictures, messaging, comments, etc.). We calculated the percentage of students who had been cyberbullied or who had cyberbullied others, by school, and aggregated the schools across the three different groups of school climate (low, medium, and high). As expected, we saw a clear relationship between the quality of the climate and the proportion of students who had experienced cyberbullying.

School Climate and Cyberbullying

As you can see from Table 1 (click here for a larger version of the chart), the better the quality of the climate, the fewer number of students reported experiencing (either as a victim or as a bully) cyberbullying. The students from higher climate schools also reported fewer sexting incidents. Our book goes into a lot more detail about the research and results, and provides numerous practical examples of ways to improve one’s school climate, so please check it out for more information.

It is important once again to acknowledge the preliminary nature of this research. We were only able to include 33 schools from one school district, and we want to encourage others to replicate this work with larger and more diverse samples. Ideally, scores of schools from around the U.S. (and abroad!) would be sampled and analyzed to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the nature of the relationship between climate and online behaviors. And we would be happy to assist others in these efforts. If you have any other questions about this or any of our other research, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, school, school climate, teacher.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

One comment

Should Cities Have a Cyberbullying Ordinance?

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in October 15, 2012 at 4:21 pm.

(11 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)

Loading ...

I have received quite a few inquiries in the last several months from local elected officials who are interested in proposing a city or county ordinance to address cyberbullying. An ordinance is basically a law or legal decree passed by local municipalities (usually a city, township, or county) that has the authority of law within the geographical limits of that municipality. Most cities have ordinances that govern parking, prohibit loud noises from vehicles, specify building standards, or require the licensure of pets, for example. If one is found to be in violation of a municipal ordinance, the person is usually fined a relatively small amount of money.

Several cities in my home state of Wisconsin have recently passed ordinances (e.g., Viroqua; Franklin). In addition, a number of cities in Missouri enacted local ordinances prohibiting cyberbullying following the tragic suicide of Megan Meier in 2006. At that time, there appeared to be very few legal (criminal) options to hold someone accountable for cyberbullying or other forms of online harassment. The question to consider is whether a local cyberbullying ordinance is the right way to tackle this problem. Here are my thoughts on this issue.

First, forty-nine states now have bullying laws in place and the vast majority of those (45) include provisions for electronic forms of harassment. The wording in these laws differs significantly from state to state, but all require schools to have policies in place to prohibit bullying and most prescribe school-based sanctions for participating in bullying. So these laws and a long line of court caselaw states that cyberbullying that occurs on school property or that substantially disrupts the school environment is subject to school authority and discipline.

Second, many states (including Montana—the one state without a formal bullying law) already have statewide criminal statutes that address cyberbullying. For example, in Wisconsin, it is a Class B misdemeanor to send an email or other computerized communication: “With intent to frighten, intimidate, threaten, abuse or harass another person…” Moreover, one is subject to a fine of up to $1,000 if they “harass, annoy, or offend another person” using an electronic communication system. Very few law enforcement officers I have communicated with here in Wisconsin have charged a student with violating this statute; however it is slightly more common for the police here (and in other places around the U.S.) to charge a student with disorderly conduct for harassing online behaviors.

So we need to ask ourselves what cyberbullying behaviors or scenarios exist that would not be covered under the above avenues and therefore would require a local ordinance? I suppose if you are in a state that does not have suitable state bullying or harassment (online or otherwise) statutes, then pursuing a local remedy might be necessary. Some of the local officials I have spoken to have indicated that their district attorney was reluctant or unwilling to file formal charges for cyberbullying behaviors and a city ordinance would give local police the ability to go after cyberbullies through the city attorney’s office. I’m not convinced this is the best place to handle these cases, but it does provide an additional lever to pull for someone who continues to engage in problematic online behaviors.

There is one potential benefit to local ordinances that may be specific to Wisconsin (it may apply to other states, I just don’t know). In Wisconsin, any contact that a person 17 years of age or older has with a circuit court (our lower level criminal court) is listed online through the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP). Anyone can look others up online through this public record system by name and birth date to see what trouble they have gotten into. When applying for jobs it is easy for hiring managers to look in this database to see whether someone has had a brush with the law. For example, if a high school junior receives an under-age drinking ticket when she is 17 years old, that would be listed on this website. Forever. So if that same student is then issued a citation for misusing a computerized communication system (sends a harassing email to a peer), which is a violation of Wisconsin state law, that too would be listed on the website, seemingly forever. If you are a victim of cyberbullying then maybe you think this is a good thing: the bully gets the punishment he or she deserves. But I think it is unrealistic to assume that anyone, especially teens, will be deterred from cyberbullying others for fear of being arrested and put on this online court system.

That is where a benefit of a local ordinance might be useful. If a city has a municipal ordinance prohibiting online harassment and also has a municipal court, then potentially the infraction would be handled at the local level and therefore the citation would not end up on the online public record. The “bully” would be punished, but it wouldn’t necessarily impact them for the rest of their life like a state violation could.

Look, the bottom line for me in all of this is that I believe that the vast majority of cyberbullying incidents, at least those that occur among school-aged youth, can and should be handled at the local level: by parents working with schools to resolve the situation outside of the formal juvenile justice system. If the harassment is particularly egregious or continues after other attempts have been made to stop it, then perhaps additional formal steps are necessary. But I just don’t think a local ordinance, on balance, will do much to add to the toolkit of suitable response strategies for this problem.

One thing is clear: if states had practical cyberbullying legislation, then local communities would not need to be looking to develop their own legal responses. I spend a lot of time working with legislators to develop cyberbullying laws. As I have mentioned on this blog before, despite my best efforts, my state of Wisconsin has a pretty poor bullying law that doesn’t even mention cyberbullying. I advocate language that emphasizes the school’s recognized authority to discipline students for any behavior that interferes with another student’s ability to feel safe and to learn at school. Specifically, I encourage legislators to adopt the following language:

Schools have the authority and responsibility to apply reasonable and educationally-based discipline, consistent with a pupil’s constitutionally granted privileges, to bullying that: (a) Occurs on, or is delivered to, school property or a school-sponsored activity or event on or off school property; or (b) Occurs off of school property or outside of a school-sponsored activity or event, if the conduct interferes with a pupil’s educational opportunities, creates a hostile environment for that pupil or others, or substantially disrupts the orderly operations of the school or school-sponsored activity or event.

To be sure, this language focuses exclusively on the school’s role in responding to student bullying and cyberbullying. It is also vitally important that parents are involved in disciplining their children when they misuse technology, but that is more difficult to legislate.

Of course the above legislative language wouldn’t address adult behaviors. Those should be handled in civil court (intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, false light, etc.) or in rare cases criminal court (harassment, stalking, misuse of computerized communications devices). For more information about responding to adult online harassment, see my blog here.

What do you think? Does your city have a cyberbullying ordinance? If you are a police officer or local prosecutor, I would love your opinion on whether you think local regulations are the way to go.

Tags: cyber-bullying, cyberbullying, law, law enforcement, legislation, policy, response.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

No comments