Presentation: Bullying and Internet risks: diagnosis, prevention and intervention

Presentación: Acoso escolar y riesgos de Internet:  diagnóstico, prevención e intervención

Joaquín González-Cabrera

Facultad de Educación. Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR)

Juan Manuel Machimbarrena

Facultad de Psicología. Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)

Peer victimization is a very relevant educational, social, and health problem. In recent decades, the educational system and society have advanced in addressing and preventing these problems. However, we are still far from having safe centers where there is no discrimination for any reason. In this sense, it should be made explicit that all the problems in the educational field are important but bullying and cyberbullying are among the few that imply great suffering for those who endure them (and their families), and, in some cases, can even cost human lives. Thus, all the actors (educators, psychologists, health personnel, families, and those involved) must work together to prevent and intervene in bullying. In this situation, researchers must be a cornerstone in its resolution. Thanks to our work, the prevalence, incidence, and stability of bullying and the protection and vulnerability factors involved are known. Also, numerous prevention and intervention programs have been carried out with evidence of effectiveness.

In this sense, thanks to the Journal of Education, we, the guest editors, launched a monograph entitled “Bullying and Internet Risks: diagnosis, prevention, and intervention.” For this purpose, we launched an open call and invited research groups with an outstanding national trajectory. We are grateful for the number of manuscripts received (31) from Spain, Italy, and various Latin American countries. The final acceptance rate was less than 25%, and we feel that many high-quality works were left out for space reasons. We appreciate the work of more than 40 reviewers from more than twenty universities who have supported the initiative and improved the published manuscripts through their excellent work. After this process, we selected seven manuscripts that we present herein and that we believe fully respond to the objectives we imposed on ourselves.

In the first place, and responding to the objective of the diagnosis, an article is presented that, through a very large sample (+10k students of Secondary Education), builds and validates a scale of self-perception and perception of bullying. It is necessary to provide the educational community with rigorously validated tools that, as in this case, allow knowing the students’ perception of bullying. In addition, we wanted to highlight the joint actions within the framework of the Master Plan for coexistence and improvement of security in educational centers, as it is crucial to increase minors’ and young people’s trust in the State Security Forces and Corps.

Next are three systematic reviews (SR) of cyberbullying, the Internet relational risk with the highest presence in the manuscripts submitted. The first SR focuses on the relationship of cyberbullying with suicidal behavior, associating the two problems and highlighting the harmful nature of cyberbullying. The second SR emphasizes cyberbullying and different executive functions and their relationship with the roles of cybervictim or cyberbully. Finally, another SR on qualitative studies is presented, which highlights the role of the family and the parents’ perception of the phenomenon of cyberbullying, which can be useful in prevention and intervention programs.

To conclude, the monograph is also fortunate to have several empirical studies that are unique concerning the nature of their design and the theme chosen. The first presents a longitudinal study (6 months) with students of Primary Education (much less studied than students of later stages). The data obtained show the relevance of social support and socio-emotional competences for the prevention of cybervictimization. The second one is a multilevel study that analyzes the effect of the group-class on cybervictimization in Secondary students, using an unusual level of analysis in the literature and of utmost importance for prevention and intervention strategies. Finally, and as a closing of the monograph, we present an investigation on another relevant relational risk of the Internet: cyber dating abuse. It highlights the prevalence of this problem and its relationship with cyberbullying.

After all the above, we wished to collect articles in the monograph that address different areas, with varying levels of action and varied methodologies. We sincerely hope that this compendium will allow other researchers to update their knowledge and will humbly contribute to understanding a problem about which much remains to be done.

Finally, we want to thank all the authors for their participation and interest, the reviewers for kindly sharing their time to improve the quality of the works, and the editorial team of the Revista de Educación for their support, sensitivity, and scope in a topic as relevant as this. Hopefully, this monograph helps contribute to the emotional well-being and quality of life of our most important capital: our children and adolescents.