Cyberbullying: A Post-Primary School Perspective

Abstract

Bullying in Irish schools is a behavioural problem which affects the lives of thousands of children and their families. The humiliation, fear, frustration, social isolation and loss of self-esteem which children can experience when bullied results in absence from school, poor school work, personality changes, sickness, depression and, unfortunately, sometimes suicide. As a post-primary teacher of Religious Education, I am aware that the development of a young person relies greatly on his/her experience in school. Religious Education is concerned not only with intellectual knowledge but also emotional and affective learning (RECD, 2012 p. 4). In recent years, a new phenomenon of bullying has become a major issue in schools, cyberbullying. Cyberbullying, defined by Belsey (2005), is “the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group that is intended to harm others” (cited in Butler et al., 2008, p. 21).

I need to be mindful, as an educator, of these ongoing bullying-related issues that could negatively affect the young people I will teach throughout my career. Therefore, for this Independent Study, I have chosen the area of cyberbullying, from a professional perspective, to enhance my knowledge of this modern issue.