In one of the earliest studies to be identified that considered college as a context in bullying research, McDougall (1999) suggested that although bullying tended to be associated more with children in primary and secondary schools, bullying was a phenomenon that existed in all stages of education and life. McDougall remarked that although it could be argued that bullying decreased with age, it still happened within post-16 education. McDougall believed that the general view of adults was that, as a child got older, he or she should be able to deal with bullying without help. On this point, McDougall (ibid, p.32) remarked that this unhelpful perception could:
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mask the true extent of bullying, especially regarding the 16 to 18 year old student who is now perceived as an adult in an adult environment
Researchers such as Whitney and Smith (1993) found in a survey of school children that being a victim of bullying declined as the children got older and progressed though schooling: 35% of primary school children reported being a victim of bullying, whereas this was 17% for secondary school pupils and 0% for 16–18 year olds. The reasons the researchers provided for this drop included the fact that the school system was no longer compulsory; hence, the worst offenders, and victims, may not have continued their education; and that victims did not continue schooling with the same peers, and therefore got a fresh start at college.
McDougall (1999) randomly selected and surveyed 500 students aged 16–18 at the college in which she worked. A definition of bullying was not provided so as to allow students to form their own concept of bullying and not to exclude experiences not falling within a general definition. Placing importance on the views of participants’ view and experiences in this way is central to the phenomenological approach used in this thesis, which is explained later in the methodology chapter. McDougall found that 9.6% of students reported being bullied, a figure that was far from negligible.
The 16–19 age range, as discussed previously, has not been afforded adequate attention in the research literature. Age is an important demographic to consider because it is associated with many psychological, behavioural, emotional and physical changes and development (Byron, 2009). Older adolescents are seen as wanting a great deal more independence and autonomy from their parents. Further, older teenagers are more willing and able to explore different roles and
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try on new identities in order to find who they are as a person, and could represent risk factors in becoming a cyberbully or cybervictim. An example of this is that a person could join in a discussion thread on a Facebook post by giving an opinion on a topic, and then targeted by other Facebook users by the way they look or be called nasty racist names for their views on immigration policy. Nonetheless, Ackers (2012) suggested that 11–18 year olds were more vulnerable to being cyberbullied because of their attraction to technology and their growing need for interaction and socialisation, although this by itself does not explain why this age group becomes a cybervictim or a cyberbully, other than to suggest than more time spent online is a risk factor.
A limited number of studies have considered age as a factor when investigating bullying and cyberbullying. For example, Bauman and Pero (2010) found that being a victim of both bullying and cyberbullying increased with age, with the highest rates reported being amongst 14 year olds. Support for this finding was found in Slonje et al. (2012) who found that the greatest incidence of cyberbullying occurred amongst children aged 13–15 year olds. Further, Wilton and Campbell (2011) found that bullying and cyberbullying perpetration were most common amongst those aged 14 years old and 15 years old, respectively. The findings of Wilton and Campbell (ibid), which involved 400 participants aged 12-17 years old, from 3 private schools, randomly selected from 20 schools, are shown in the table below. This table also indicates that 14 year olds were mostly involved as both bullies and cyberbullies, demonstrating the same increasing then decreasing pattern.
51 Table 3: Age comparisons of being a bully and cyberbully
Age Participants Bully Cyberbully Both bully and cyberbully
N % N % n % N % 12 39 9.8 4 10.3 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 142 35.5 22 15.5 2 1.4 3 2.1 14 121 30.3 26 21.5 3 2.5 10 8.3 15 89 22.3 13 14.6 3 3.4 1 1.1 16 6 1.5 2 33.3 0 0.0 0 0.0 17 3 0.8 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 Total 400 100 67 16.8 8 2.0 14 3.5
Adapted from Wilton and Campbell (2011)
The researchers found that 2% (n=8) of 400 participants were cyberbullies. Although the rate for cyberbullying others was low, the sample size was also low, with only nine participants in total aged 16 and 17 years old. Thus, the prevalence rate of 16 year olds engaging in bullying at a rate of 33.3% was distorted. Details of how participants were selected within the schools was not made explicit, which could indicate sampling bias. An interesting feature in the researchers’ methodology was the decision to survey students in private schools. This feature of their research is important as it highlights the opportunity and need to survey, and subsequently compares findings of bullying and cyberbullying from different institution types so as to establish whether there was the presence of any interesting relationships. Despite the different prevalence levels across these age groups, the researchers did not find a statistically significant relationship between perpetration and age for either bullying or cyberbullying. The researchers did not collect data on those who were bullied or cyberbullied, which represented a missed opportunity in data collection.
Cross et al. (2009) provided data on the prevalence of cyber victimisation of 11– 16 year olds in their research, as tabled below.
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Table 4: Percentage of each age experiencing isolated and persistent victimisation
Age of participant Isolated cyber victimisation (%) Persistent cyber victimisation (%)
11 12.0 6.0 12 14.0 5.5 13 16.0 9.0 14 17.0 10.0 15 20.5 8.5 16 21.0 9.5
Adapted from Cross et al (2009, p.22)
The data in the table shows that isolated cyberbullying incidents tends to increase with age, thus suggesting that, as young people got older, they were more likely to become victims of cyberbullying. In relation to persistent cyber victimisation, there was a fluctuating relationship with age, peaking at 14 years old, although there is less variation in the percentages. The researchers also did not collect any data pertaining to cyberbullying perpetration in terms of age. Without this information, it was not possible to determine the relationship between the age of the victim and of the bullies, in terms of whether or not older pupils were being cyberbullied by older or younger pupils.
Guerra et al. (2011) suggested that bullying peaked during early adolescence and declined in later years, citing the association between decreased victimisation with increased age as a link to power imbalance. The researchers suggested that age provided the power imbalance, suggesting that older children could bully younger children. This goes some way to explaining the decreasing victimisation rate as children get older, that is bullies may instead be engaged in bullying younger children who may find it more difficult to defend themselves because they are younger. This connection was also suggested by Butler et al. (2010) in respect to older children engaging in cyberbullying. Support was further found in Ybarra and Mitchell (2004), who reported older students (those aged 15 years and older)
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were more involved as internet aggressors than younger children (aged 10–14 years old). Furthermore, Tarapdar and Kellett (2011) reported older youths (14–15 years old) as being more likely to be victims of cyberbullying (at a rate of 40%) than younger youths (at a rate of 35%); however, no reasons were given as to why, and the researchers did not state whether this findings were statistically significant.
In contrast with these studies and the notion that older children (although none of these studies considered participants aged 16 and over) are more commonly engaged in cyberbullying, Smith et al. (2008) found that older students were less likely to be engaged in cyberbullying—both as victims and as perpetrators. The researchers surveyed 360 adolescents; 210 were 12–15 years old in secondary school whilst the remaining 150 were 15–20 years old in sixth form education in Sweden. Although no statistically significant age differences were found for either perpetration or victimisation, the difference in prevalence rates between secondary school pupils (17.6% cybervictims, 11.9% cyberbullies) and sixth form students (8% cybervictims, 3.3% cyberbullies) shows that younger children were victimised more than older children. The researchers did not look into whether those in the sixth form targeted those in secondary school; collection of such data would have added weight to Guerra et al (2011) claim that age provided power imbalance. However, sixth form students in Smith et al. (2008) were found to engage less in cyberbullying than secondary school pupils. This suggests that Guerra’s assumption that older children bully younger children may not be accurate. In any case, the possibility of being anonymous in cyberbullying situations means that cyberbullies can hide their age, and therefore it is plausible that older children can be cyberbullied by younger children.
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Although the above studies considered age as a possible factor in determining engagement with cyberbullying, some do not explore why age is a factor: for example, they did not make connections such as behavioural or biological changes, as outlined by Byron (2009). Thus far, the relationship has only been investigated largely at a surface level. The literature has also missed key opportunities to explore those aged 16 and older. For example, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted, 2012) stated that its report focussed on 5–18 year olds; however, only primary and secondary schools were visited as part of their research, and no information was gathered pertaining to the 16–18 year age category. In Hinduja and Patchin (2008), respondents aged 17 and over were excluded from the analysis, even though thee accounted for nearly a half of the sample (43%, n = 2,978) with no reasons given. The researchers even made reference to age being an indicator of cyberbullying and used age as a factor in their analysis for those aged below 17 years.
Furthermore, Tarapdar and Kellet (2011), in their research that focused on age comparisons in cyberbullying, recognised that there was sparse literature on age comparisons in cyberbullying research. They pointed out the following:
By disaggregating age, additional knowledge is hoped to be generated to ascertain the extent to which this may influence young people’s experiences, responses and attitudes and prevention (p.15).
The aim of their research was to:
achieve a breadth and depth of analysis [by] incorporating perspectives of numerous and diverse young people, representative of a cross-section of youth in England, is an important feature of this work (p.15).
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Despite these reassuring assertions, however, the age range considered in the research was only 12–16 year olds enrolled in secondary schools. In research based on age comparisons, they missed the opportunity to include the post-16 age group, failing to mention it in their own methodology.
It is clear that research on cyberbullying needs to be conducted in post-16 education so that more data can be collected to understand how cyberbullying works in this age group and to measure the extent of the issue among this age group. The question arises: what becomes of teenagers in education in terms of research into cyberbullying when they go to college? They should remain on the research radar.