Teachers’ and parents’ understanding of traditional and cyberbullying

ABSTRACT

Bullying has serious consequences for students, parents, teachers, and the wider community. This study assessed teachers’ and parents’ ability to accurately identify traditional bullying and cyberbullying scenarios. Perceived seriousness of scenarios was explored and gender differences were examined. Analyses revealed teachers were more accurate in identifying traditional bullying scenarios than parents, with no differences found for cyberbullying scenarios or perceptions of severity. Males were more accurate in identifying noncyberbullying scenarios. Females perceived the majority of traditional and cyberbullying scenarios as more serious. Results suggest understanding teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of traditional and cyberbullying is crucial to bullying research and intervention efforts, as their recognition of bullying and perceived severity impacts the likelihood they would intervene. Implications for the prevention and intervention of bullying are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Traditional bullying
• cyberbullying
• teachers
• parents
• understanding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Cyber bullying: An evidence-based approach to the application and reform of law, policy and practice in schools. [ARC Linkage Cyber bullying. LP0882087].