It takes a school?
The expression “it takes a village to raise a child” has obscure origins, but the implication is that each of us operates within and is influenced by a community. There are multiple influences on our development and functioning. If this is reality, there are advantages and disadvantages that follow. On the positive side, there may be options when expected influencers are ineffective. On the negative side, problems are seldom resolved by focusing on one source.
The “whole school approach” to victimization (e.g., Smith, et al., 2004) argues that cyberbullying (actually the original model focused on bullying) is a systemic problem unlikely to be adequately addressed assuming that the only needed intervention is to focus on the perpetrators. Hence, an approach based on punishing those who can be verified as cyberbullies does not go far enough. The idea is that roles beyond those of cyberbully and victim exist in explaining this problem, but also that those filling these other roles might be influenced to change their behavior in order to address the problem. Individuals in various roles within the school (administrator, counselor, teacher, coach, friend, peer) and some outside of the school (parents of the students involved, parents of other students) can be influential. So, our approach here is to consider what roles are involved and to consider how all who represent any of these various roles might be influenced to make productive changes in behavior.
We take some of these ideas from Shariff (2008) who identified multiple roles in bullying behavior (the face to face variety). This researcher suggested that in a given situation of bullying multiple roles may exist:
- bully,
- victim,
- assistant (to the bully),
- reinforcer (encourage but not participate),
- defender (of the victim), and
- outsider (not involved).
So, returning to the earlier contention that addressing the problem should do more than attempt to identify and punish the perpetrator, it might be important to recognize the significance of the other roles recognized here and attempt to understand what motivates their behavior (or lack thereof). Perhaps the situation would be different if reinforcers did not reinforce, more outsiders supported the defenders, and victims had a different social skill set that might limit or allow a response to attacks.
Many of these same roles would apply in the social environment of cyberbullying. We discuss the interrelationship of bullying and cyberbullying and also identify some of the characteristics of cyberbullying that are unique to this form of aggression elsewhere. Our intent here is to take a similar approach and consider what might be going on with those in different roles involved in cyberbullying and how changes in the behaviors associated with some of these roles might be helpful.