Tag: cyberbully

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Research to action: 5 must read bullying research briefs

A recent post by danah boyd, social media researcher announced some new resources in the effort to combat bullying, created for the new Born This Way Foundation, created by Lady Gaga and her mother.

“The Foundation wants to create a kinder, braver world so that youth can be the change-agents that we all need them to be. For youth to be empowered, the Foundation recognizes that 1) youth need to be safe; 2) youth need to have skills; and 3) youth need to have opportunities.”

danah, along with many other notable folks, are working with the new foundation. In her post, she announced a working paper series, starting with five new resources that synthesize research for the Foundation – and help schools and communities easily get the best, accessible advice to inform their local efforts. Best of all, the foundation and these working papers emphasize that youth empowerment needs to be a main focus for these efforts. This kind of insight and commitment is admirable – this is NOT a feel-good celebrity cause for the cameras.

This working paper series offer practical, ground-level resources based on the best available research. The first five documents are:

They are looking for comments and feedback on these documents –  send them to kbw-feedback@cyber.law.harvard.edu

Sylvia

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Drama! Why adult concepts of cyberbullying don’t mesh with teens

It’s an unimaginable tragedy for any person to commit suicide. It’s a family’s worst nightmare and a problem that society must address. In recent months, more and more news stories are surfacing about very young people committing suicide and tying the cause to bullying, especially in online environments – cyberbullying.

Campaigns have started to find ways to reach youth with media and school anti-bullying programs. Of course people want to do the right thing. Of course adults want to help young people. But what really does help?

Alice Marwick and danah boyd, both highly respected social media and youth researchers wrote an op-ed for the New York Times today – Why Cyberbullying Rhetoric Misses the Mark

It’s based on a new paper – The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics

You should read these, both of them. Why? Because the authors talked to teens, and listened. For six years. Across all kinds of kids, all kinds of socio-economic groups and geography. What they heard was that teens do not use the same language as adults. What an adult might label “bullying”, teens call “drama.” And in the paper, the authors distill what that means and how it plays out in real life (both online and off.)

It’s not just a different word for the same thing. The authors listened to youth about the motivation – why would teens engage in drama? What do they get out of it? It’s a fascinating read.

One of the big takeaways for me was the relationship of adult bullying solutions to the issues of youth agency. When we ask young people to accept adult definitions and solutions to the problems of their lives, adults often ignore the fact that this is asking them to put a label on themselves. If you are being bullied and adults tell you “tell an adult”, it’s meant as a friendly, supportive gesture. However, for a young person, that means first accepting that they are a victim. This is a big ask for a young person building their own identity.

I hope you take the time to read both the article and the full paper. They are worth it!

Sylvia

Paper Abstract: While teenage conflict is nothing new, today’s gossip, jokes, and arguments often play out through social media like Formspring, Twitter, and Facebook. Although adults often refer to these practices with the language of “bullying,” teens are more likely to refer to the resultant skirmishes and their digital traces as “drama.” Drama is a performative set of actions distinct from bullying, gossip, and relational aggression, incorporating elements of them but also operating quite distinctly. While drama is not particularly new, networked dynamics reconfigure how drama plays out and what it means to teens in new ways. In this paper, we examine how American teens conceptualize drama, its key components, participant motivations for engaging in it, and its relationship to networked technologies. Drawing on six years of ethnographic fieldwork, we examine what drama means to teenagers and its relationship to visibility and privacy. We argue that the emic use of “drama” allows teens to distance themselves from practices which adults may conceptualize as bullying. As such, they can retain agency – and save face – rather than positioning themselves in a victim narrative. Drama is a gendered process that perpetrates conventional gender norms. It also reflects discourses of celebrity, particularly the mundane interpersonal conflict found on soap operas and reality television. For teens, sites like Facebook allow for similar performances in front of engaged audiences. Understanding how “drama” operates is necessary to recognize teens’ own defenses against the realities of aggression, gossip, and bullying in networked publics.

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Youth risk online: International Bullying Prevention Conference – Seattle

I’ve been invited to participate in a day-long pre-conference panel on Youth Risk Online: Issues and Solutions at the International Bullying Prevention Association (IBPA) November 15-17 in Seattle, Washington. This is a in-depth look at a topic that’s both timely and important. But I’m most excited about getting to meet the other panelists. These are some of the most respected names in this area, people who are on the front lines of making schools (and the world) a safer, better place for kids. (List below)

The focus will be on positive action and clear information – not scare tactics. Cyberbullying has become a hot topic with media and there is a lot of conflicting information for parents and educators to sift through. We hope to sort some of this out and release a document afterwards that summarizes the event.

The day will be broken up into sections covering:

  • The Challenges. The presentation of current research and on-the-ground insight into the risks being faced by young people online.
  • Positive School and Online Climate. Developing an all-school approach to interpersonal relationships that will support both a positive school climate and enhance positive online interactions.
  • Engaging Youth. Strategies to engage youth in developing the understanding and skills to ensure their competence in the online world and enlisting their assistance to others.
  • Investigations and Interventions. Addressing the specific concerns of investigating and intervening in youth risk online issues that are impacting schools.
  • The Larger Cyberworld. Expanding the discussion to include necessary insight on what is happening in other arenas including government, non-governmental organizations, initiatives addressing universal literacy, and the efforts of industry.

If you are a person responsible for your school or district’s policies in this area, this is a MUST ATTEND event.

The participants
I apologize for not linking all these names up, but it’s just too much work and they are all easily found!

Andrew Agatston is an attorney in private practice in Marietta, Georgia, whose civil trial practice includes representing crime victims, victims of bullying and other acts of aggression, and those who are otherwise intentionally harmed by others. He has also attempted to advise and assist those who have been targets of cyber bullying, encouraging non-litigation and dispute resolution as potential solutions.

Patricia Agatston is co-author of the book, Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age with Robin Kowalski, Ph.D., and Susan Limber, Ph.D. that was recently published by Wiley – Blackwell Publishers. She is also co-author of the Cyber Bullying Curriculum for Grades 6 – 12 and the Cyber Bullying Prevention Curriculum for Grades 3 – 5. Patti is a certified trainer and technical assistance consultant for the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program and a Licensed Professional Counselor and Prevention Specialist with the Cobb County School District’s Prevention/ Intervention Center in Marietta, Georgia. She is also on the board of the International Bullying Prevention Association.

Warren J. Blumenfeld, Ed.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa specializing in Multicultural and International Curriculum Studies; & Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. He is co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice; Co-Editor of Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States; Editor of Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price; and Co-author of Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life.

Linda Burch leads Common Sense Media’s education, program and strategy development efforts and has been the architect of the organization’s digital media strategy. In this role, she is coordinating the efforts of researchers and risk prevention professionals, along with professionals in instructional design and parent education to create new resources to support universal education for students and parents on digital media literacy. Linda received her MBA from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

Anne Collier is editor of NetFamilyNews.org, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, and founder and executive director of Net Family News. She co-authored with SafeKids.com’s Larry Magid the first parents’ guide to teen social networking, MySpace Unraveled (Peachpit Press, 2006). She served as co-chair of the Obama administration’s Online Safety & Technology Working Group, which sent its report to Congress in June 2010; on the Harvard Berkman Center’s 2008 Internet Safety Technical Task Force; and currently serves on the advisory boards of several national and international nonprofit child advocacy organizations.

Det. Frank Dannahey is a 29 year veteran of Law Enforcement; assigned to the Youth Division of the Rocky Hill, Connecticut Police Department for the past 20 years. Frank holds a BS Degree and received numerous State/Federal training in Child Computer Crimes & Exploitation. He has done numerous trainings on Internet safety topics for the past 11 years; both locally and nationally. His expertise resulted in him being featured on several National TV Broadcasts and National Publications.

Stan Davis worked with abused and grieving children and trained Child Protective Workers. He designed and implemented training for rape crisis centers and collaborated with police to develop interventions for domestic abuse. Since 1985 he has worked as a school counselor at all grade levels. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked to prevent bullying. He has written two books: Schools Where Everyone Belongs and Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention. In 1985 he became a school counselor. After working in High School and Middle School he moved to the James H. Bean elementary school in Sidney, Maine, where he continues to work three days a week. With Dr. Charisse Nixon, Stan is co-leading the Youth Voice Research Project, which has collected information from more than 11,000 young people in the United States about what works and what doesn’t work in bullying prevention.

Mike Donlin has been involved in education for over 30 years, having taught all grade levels from kindergarten through university courses. Mike was with Seattle Public Schools from 1980 until 2010. He taught in classrooms and supervised a variety of programs throughout the District. He was a Program Administrator with Seattle Public Schools, with the job title of “Senior Program Consultant.” His position was split between the Learning and Teaching and the Operations/Tech Services sides of the district. In that capacity, Mike managed Federal Title IID Enhancing Education Through Technology programs and worked in Prevention-Intervention bully prevention programs, with an emphasis on internet safety and cyberbullying. Mike has shifted his activities into research, consulting, and professional development related to youth risk online and educational technology concerns.

Elizabeth Englander is a professor of Psychology & the founder & Director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State College, which delivers free anti-bullying programs, resources, & research for the state of Massachusetts. A National Merit Scholar & Phi Beta Kappan, she is a nationally recognized expert in the area of bullying & cyberbullying & the author of “Understanding Violence” & more than 3 dozen articles.

Dr. Lance Gibbon is a 19-year public school educator in Washington State. Dr. Gibbon is a former music teacher in the Lake Washington School District, where he also served as assistant principal and technology staff developer. He moved to Anacortes in 2000, where he worked as an elementary principal for 7 years. Dr. Gibbon earned his doctorate in education from Seattle Pacific University in 2007 and has taught School Law for administrators as an SPU adjunct professor. Since 2007, Dr. Gibbon has been the Assistant Superintendent in the Oak Harbor School District.

Sameer Hinduja is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University and Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center (www.cyberbullying.us). He works nationally and internationally with the private and public sector to reduce online victimization and its real-world consequences. His research has been featured in hundreds of print and online articles around the world, as well as on radio and TV. Sameer has written two books, his latest entitled Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying (co-authored with Justin W. Patchin), and his interdisciplinary research is widely published in a number of peer-reviewed academic journals.

Lisa Jones is a Research Assistant Professor of Psychology at UNH. She has over 10 years experience conducting research on child victimization and evaluating national, state, and community-level responses to youth. Lisa recently received a grant from NIJ to conduct a process evaluation of Internet safety prevention education programs. She is author or co-author on several papers on Internet crimes against children as well as numerous papers on other aspects of child victimization.

Rebekah Sills Lamm is a Youth Education Specialist at Texas School Safety Center. She trains a variety of community stakeholders including parents, educators, administrators, counselors, law enforcement, and students on the issues surrounding Internet safety, cyberbullying, and the importance of cultural inclusion. Rebekah believes that every student deserves safe, quality, equitable education, and has dedicated her career to making that a reality for Texas children. In order for our youth to do their absolute best, they need the healthiest, safest schools possible. Rebekah has worked with youth in some capacity since 2002. She received her M.A. in American Studies from Baylor University in 2007 and taught at the college level prior to joining TxSSC in 2008.

Larry Magid. Ed.D., is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He serves as onair technology analyst for CBS News, is co-director of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com. He writes columns that appear on CNET News, CBSNews.com, Huffington Post and the San Jose Mercury News. Larry has written or co-written numerous books including MySpace Unraveled: A parents guide to teen social networking. He’s a board member of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and a member of the of the Obama administration’s Online Safety & Technology Working Group, where he chairs the education sub-committee.

Sylvia Martinez is President of Generation YES, evangelizing student involvement in education reform through technology integration and service learning. GenYES students use their digital age knowledge to make their schools better places for learning by helping teachers, peer mentoring, and doing tech support. Prior to joining Generation YES, Sylvia developed video and educational games and was an aerospace engineer. She holds a Master’s in Educational Technology from Pepperdine and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UCLA.

Donnel Nunes is a behavioral health specialist in Hawaii. His focus is exploring ways to incorporate technology and media into mental health practice. He regularly uses film, music, and other creative software to foster engagement, increase disclosure, and collect data. Recently, he published a paper titled, “Technology and the Adolescent: Pairing Modern Media and Technology with Mental Health Practice.” He is currently a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Hawai‘i.

Justin Patchin is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He has presented on various topics relating to juvenile justice, school violence, policy and program evaluation, and adolescent Internet use and misuse at academic conferences and training seminars across the United States. His most recent book Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying (coauthored with Sameer Hinduja), examines the ways adolescents use technology to cause harm to their peers (and what adults can do about it).

Kim P. Sanchez, Sr. Audience Marketing Manager, Microsoft Corporation. Kim Sanchez is a Senior Audience Marketing Manager in the Trustworthy Computing group at Microsoft Corporation. She is responsible for strategic communications to worldwide consumer and government audiences on Microsoft’s work in computer privacy, security and online safety.

Robin Sax is a former LA County Prosecutor. Robin authored six books, including “Predators and Child Molesters.” Robin is a sought after speaker on child & internet safety, cyberbullying, and the criminal justice system – to name a few topics. Robin has appeared on dozens of national shows, including: Dr. Phil show, Tyra Banks, CNN Larry King, HLN Nancy Grace, Today Show and many others! Robin is now an NBC Legal Analyst.

Nancy Willard has degrees in special education and law. She taught “at risk” children, practiced computer law, and was an educational technology consultant before focusing her professional attention on issues of youth risk online and effective management of student Internet use. Nancy is author of two books: Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats and Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens, numerous articles, and professional development videos.

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This is going to be one amazing and informative day!

If you are a person responsible for your school or district’s policies in this area, this is a MUST ATTEND event. Hope to see you there!

Sylvia

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Heavy-handed filtering is a problem, not a solution

I recently saw an email on the WWWEDU listserve by Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, that I thought really needed to be shared. Nancy has given me permission to reproduce it here. Nancy is one of the sanest and smartest voices regarding youth and online safety. Her latest book on Cyberbullying (available at Amazon) is a must read for parents and teachers. I really respect her knowledge on this subject and feel that her approach, based on real data and work with real kids is far superior to the current climate of fear and scare tactics surrounding education in an online world.

In this email, Nancy answers questions about filtering and school responsibility for online safety.  If you are an educator dealing with unreasonable filtering that hampers your ability to teach, I urge you to explore her website and buy her books.

We must use knowledge, not fear, as our guide to face the opportunities and dangers of the 21st Century.

Sylvia

—————– The rest of this post is all Nancy —————–

We will NOT be able to effectively prepare students for their education, career, and civic responsibilities in the 21st Century if the technical services directors in schools throughout this country continue their heavy handed filtering.

It is essential to shift how the Internet is being managed from a primary reliance on filtering to more effective monitoring – in an environment where education – not social – use of the Internet is expected, and supported with effective professional and curriculum development.

Q: Dear Nancy, does the law specifically state how tight the filter has to be set. Do we have to set it at its most restrictive setting can’t it be at its least restrictive setting?
A: All you have to do under CIPA is set it to block pornographic material – obscene material and material harmful for minors. There is NO liability for schools if they choose not to set it to block an area and something “inappropriate” happens to appear on that site. The CIPA regulations mentioned the understanding that filtering is not perfect.

There is absolutely NO justification under CIPA for the heavy-handed filtering that is preventing effective instruction in schools today. The problem is that schools are overly reliant on filtering when they should be shifting to more of a focus on monitoring.

The other problem is the non-research-based fear-mongering about internet risk. Just about everything you hear in the press – or from politicians – about online sexual predators is not supported by the research data.

They are not targeting children. They are not tracking down teens based on personal contact information they post. 1 in 5 or 7 young people has not been contacted by a predator. There are not 50,000 predators online at any given time prowling for victims. There are legitimate concerns of adults who are preying on emotionally vulnerable or “seeking” teens. But the arrest rates for sexual abuse of minors have actually been going down in the last decade.

Q: Our district (actually most of the state) went to web washer and we are even more restricted now than we were before.
A: No one at the filtering companies is held accountable for the decisions that are being made. 8e6 has a close relationship with the American Family Association!!! Think of the objections if the American Family Association was the organization deciding what books would be allowed in schools. No one knows what biases the other companies might have.

It is OUTRAGEOUS that tech directors and administrators would think that these companies are better at selecting sites for their appropriateness than librarians and teachers!

Q: The person setting the filter is not an educator but an IT tech with little or no classroom experience.
A: This is a major concern. The people who are making content based decisions on what categories should be blocked should be the librarians and curriculum specialists. The IT folks should be involved only on decisions related to security and bandwidth issues.

Further EVERY librarian and ed tech specialist in the schools should have the authority to override the filter and provide access to a site that has been inappropriately blocked – based on the educational determination of its content!

Further, EVERY counselor, administrator, and school resource officer, should also have the ability to override to investigate online material that presents safety of student well-being concerns. (And they may need some help from more tech savvy folks to be able to do this.)

I am working on professional development resources to address both youth risk online and effective Internet use management for a Web 2.0 World. Should be available January. These will be narrated slides presentations with reproducible handouts – with CLE credit available.

Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://www.embracecivility.org/
http://cyberbully.org

Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress (Amazon)

Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly (Jossey-Bass) (also at Amazon)

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