Cyberbullying and Sociocultural Theory
From WikEd
What is traditional bullying?
"Repeated negative, ill-intentioned behavior by one or more students directed against a student who has difficulty defending himself or herself. Most bullying occurs without any apparent provocation on the part of the student who is exposed." Traditional bullying involves systematic efforts to inflict harm on another, through physical, verbal, or social attacks” (Olweus).
What is cyberbullying?
"Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others “(www.bullying.org).
Traditional bullying vs. cyberbullying
- Face-to-face vs. impersonal
- One form vs. many forms (i.e. email, text messaging, instant messaging)
- Familiar aggressor vs. unfamiliar aggressor
- Overt vs. covert
- School-aged vs. many ages
- School vs. online
Li, Q. (2005). New bottle old wine: A research of cyberbullying in schools
Li examines adolescents’ experiences with cyberbullying and characteristics of bullying online. Li found that 54% of the sample experienced bullying in its traditional form and more than a quarter were victims of online bullying. Often times, the online victims did not know their assailant. Additionally, bullying online occurred via e-mail, in chat rooms, and through cellular phone text messages. With regard to gender, 60% of the online victims were female. Moreover, Li suggests that females prefer to use technological means to bully.Li (2005) suggests that peer status, social, and biological changes are related to violence in schools.
Anderson, A. & Sturm, B. (2007). Cyberbullying From Playground to Computer
The article provides an overview of cyberbullying, the characteristics of children involved, its relation to traditional bullying and suggested interventions. Traditional bullying was thought to be a part of growing up and part of children’s play. However, bullying can have serious effects on psychological well-being.
Applying the sociocultural theory
Sociocultural theory suggests that bullying results from power differences between various social groups with different levels of power. Gender, race, ethnicity, or social class is usually the difference between groups. These have a historical and cultural basis. We live in a patriarchal society. Throughout the course of history men have been viewed as the dominant sex. Men have been endowed with power and authority. Males then display their dominance by intimidating and exerting power over females. Research has shown that males are more likely to bully and have a tendency to bully girls (Rigby, 2004). Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory also suggests that the child and others socially construct knowledge in the culture in a context mostly controlled by adults.
Questions
- Is bullying a learned behavior?
- In what way have males been socialized throughout history that may cause boys to bully others?
- How are boys taught to behave around girls? On the other hand, how are girls taught to behave around boys?
- Why are boys thought to be the main culprits of bullying?
- Are there differences between genders in the methods and manner in which they bully others?
- How is power/social class conveyed or established in online communities?
- How then do parents and children socially construct knowledge about bullying? What meanings are associated with bullying?
Signed “life experiences”, testimonies and stories
We recently had a major cyberbullying incident at school through Facebook. A student used an offensive picture of someone else as his own profile picture. He intended it as a joke and couldn't understand why it was wrong. The "joke" quickly circulated around school and soon even teachers were talking about it. When the student's homeroom teacher found out what happened, she skipped over the parents and principal and went right to Facebook. I was happy to hear that the people at Facebook dealt with it wonderfully and removed the picture right away. - M. Schroeder
Last year, we had an incident between two girls who had gotten in trouble at school for physically fighting. They were told that they would receive much harsher punishments if they were found to be fighting (even verbally) again. Well, sure enough, one of the girls found a way to still hassle the other one, and it was through MySpace. There was really no way to prevent the verbal abuse and threats until we caught wind of it through the girl that was being harrassed. The girl that was bullying her immediately took her comments off of her MySpace; therefore, there was no evidence that could be used against her. The situation was eventually taken care of and both girls finally let go of whatever issues they had with one another. However, this incident shed light as to how the Internet can be an easy way for students to harrass one another outside of school. Because MySpace is a public domain, the school techinically has no authority in it; therefore, students are able to get away with a lot of behaviors they shouldn't be involved in (i.e. drinking alcohol, smoking, drugs, inappropriate attire and behavior, etc.). I highly doubt that the school administration will ever be able to exercise any authority in this arena. ~H.Yeam (May 2009)
