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School social workers on cyberbullying: Study

January 13, 2011 By Anne 3 Comments

A study published this month in the journal Children & Schools found that 45% of school social workers for grades pre-K through 12 “feel ill-equipped” to deal with cyberbullying, PsychCentral.com reports. I honestly think part of the reason for that high number is because cyberbullying has been so misrepresented and misunderstood in our society to date – represented all too much as a mysterious new threat to kids for which adults were wholly unprepared and have no known antidote. Isn’t that how you’re seeing cyberbullying portrayed in the news media? The thing is, the vast majority of the 400 school social workers in the study coauthored by Temple University social work professor Jonathan Singer know a lot about how to deal with bullying and a lot of other child and adolescent behavior that’s part of cyberbullying. They have not actually been caught unprepared.

Why don’t we, as a society and as youth safety advocates, empower parents, educators, social workers, everybody who loves and works with kids, by telling them they can deal with this challenge too, because most of it – most of the spectrum of behavior behind cyberbullying – is behavior human beings have been dishing out and dealing with since the beginning of time, now just online too. Why don’t we do a better job of telling what we now know from the research: that the kids most at risk online are the kids already most at risk offline (and social workers are educated to work with at-risk youth), that kids’ online experiences are very embedded in or a reflection of their offline lives (mostly school life, which takes up a lot of their time and waking thought), that a kid’s home and school environment and psychosocial makeup are better predictors of risk than any technology s/he uses, and that aggressive behavior online more than doubles the aggressor’s risk of being victimized online. Now that we know all that, there is a lot social workers can do in their day-to-day work with students. [Those findings are spelled out in the report of the first task force on which I had the privilege to serve, in a lit review by Andrew Shrock and danah boyd, PhD, and since updated by Samantha Biegler and danah boyd (pdf linked to in boyd’s blog here).]

Back to the study, which surveyed nearly 400 school social workers who are members of the Midwest School Social Work Council: It found that “only about 20% thought their school had an effective cyberbullying policy,” and they “felt that instances of cyberbullying were much more severe in middle school than in either elementary school or high school.” Dr. Singer told PsychCentral that the findings “show a clear need to account for grade level” in designing policies, training, etc. And open-hearted, nonconfrontational communication between adults and students, I hope, because it gets more granular than grade level! [See also “Educators’ Guide to Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats at the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use” and this link for much more on cyberbullying here at NetFamilyNews.]

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Filed Under: cyberbullying, Risk & Safety Tagged With: cyberbullying, Jonathan Singer, school social workers, Temple University, youth risk research

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Comments

  1. Judge Tom says

    January 19, 2011 at 6:48 am

    After 23 years in juvenile court, I believe that teenagers often learn from the experiences of their peers, not just from being lectured by those in authority. Consequently, “Teen Cyberbullying Investigated” was published in 2010.

    Endorsed by Dr. Phil [“Bullied to Death”], “Teen Cyberbullying Investigated” presents real cases of teens in trouble over their online and cell phone activities. Civil & criminal sanctions have been imposed on teens over their emails, blogs, text messages, Facebook and YouTube posts and more. TCI is interactive and promotes education & awareness so that our youth will begin to “Think B4 U Click.”

    Thanks for looking at “Teen Cyberbullying Investigated” on http://www.freespirit.com [publisher] or on http://www.askthejudge.info [a free website for & about teens and the laws that affect them.]
    Regards, -Judge Tom

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Expert Interview: Anne Collier On The Danger of “Predator-Panic” Among Parents and School Administrators – Part 1 of 2 | Online Social Savvy says:
    February 22, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    […] half of school social workers believe that they are not trained to deal with cyberbullying. I blogged about this, and I think this is baloney. They only have been led to believe that. School social workers are […]

    Reply
  2. Understanding cyberbullying from the inside out | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    January 28, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    […] is something the school counselors and risk-prevention practitioners among us do understand (see this), and is only an “epidemic,” as we hear in the news, if adolescence (or adulthood) is. […]

    Reply

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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