Cyberbullying - Shifting boundaries in scenes and roles of offending and victimization. The TABBY model program

There are several studies focusing on school bullying. however its online version, cyberbullying, is a less researched area: it only emerged by the spreading of Internet and mobile communication technology. Even today, few programmes where tested properly. Nevertheless, online bullying requires a complex management strategy. TABBY in Internet (JLS/2009-2010/DAP/AG) is a complex action research managed through the years 2011 and 2012, with the participation of 5 European countries.

Researches show that there is a strong link between school and online bullying. (Offline incidents often migrate into online scenes: Raskauskas & Stoltz, 2007; Patchin & Hinduja, 2006) Our experience has justified an additional characteristic of bullying: whereas the roles of bully and victim are less permeable at school, the borderline between the two types of behavior is not so strict in the online scene. Victims of school bullying usually stay victims at school, however they tend to becomeoffenders and take revenge online. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006, 2009; Menesini & Nocentini, 2009) We studied the prevalence and patterns of different types of bullying, its gender distribution, and the environmental and personal factors conjugatingin the role of an offender, a victim ora bystander. We managed to separate groups with different level of involvement into offline and online bullying by level of vulnerability and socio-demographic features. The study identified the factors that form the 3 types of role.

Conclusion: Students with different roles apply different coping mechanisms, so that they require different approaches from the school staff.We can conclude that the trainings were effective, as the experimental group showed less risk level compared to the pre-test and the control group’s results. The program has positive outcome, however there are weaknesses as well. Important lessons learned that have to be incorporated in the follow up of the program.