Untangling the Web: A Social-Ecological Analysis of Cyberbullying

• In Event: Correlates and Consequences of Cyberbullying

Abstract

Cyberbullying has emerged as an important social and public health concern, and involvement in cyberbullying has been associated with a variety of negative health outcomes. To date, however, cyberbullying research has suffered from two limitations. First, most scholarship has occurred in the absence of theory. Second, cyberbullying has frequently been studied as if it exists in a vacuum, influenced only by basic demographic characteristics. This paper addresses these limitations by drawing upon Bronfenbrenner’s classic ecological systems theory to understand the multiple reciprocal influences on youth’s involvement in cyberbullying. Survey data collected from a sample of middle and high school students is used to address three research questions: 1) What individual, family, peer-group, and school (i.e., microsystem) characteristics are associated with cyberbullying? 2) What is the effect of interactions among these contexts (mesosystem; e.g., parent-school relations) on cyberbullying? 3) What is the effect of broader community structures (exosystem) on cyberbullying?

Author

• Ryan Broll, University of Guelph