Using the quality circle approach to empower disadvantaged youth in addressing cyberbullying: an exploration across five European countries

Abstract

Digital communication technologies play an important role in the social development of young people, but can create vulnerabilities to cyberbullying and other negative online experiences. The Blurred Lives project aimed to tackle cyberbullying innovatively using a co-participatory approach, collaborating with 14-16-year olds living in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage in five European countries. In phase one, 2,658 teenagers were surveyed on their internet use and any unpleasant online experiences. This data informed the second phase where the participating countries worked together with 237 adolescents across 10 schools with adult facilitators to create original anti-cyberbullying resources for teachers, parents/carers, peers, and social media providers using the Quality Circle approach. This methodology adopts an ethos of working together to solve a problem in small, peer-led groups. Each group was tasked with creating a resource for one of the target audience groups. The final resources comprise a rich variety of different formats including videos, comic strips, a board game, leaflets, posters, and newsletters. The pupil feedback highlights, for most but not all participants, an increased knowledge of cyberbullying and e-safety skills, as well as enhanced problem-solving skills, levels of confidence, and group work skills. Several operational challenges are also discussed, including the importance of school-level support, planning, staffing, and finding an appropriate balance between facilitator support and pupil agency.

Stay Safe and Strong: Characteristics, Roles and Emotions of Student-Produced Comics Related to Cyberbullying

“…The present study was part of the project entitled Blurred Lives , conducted over two years (2017–2019) by five European partners and funded by Erasmus+ (for a detailed description of the project, see [ 17 , 58 ]). The project envisaged the collaboration between researchers from five countries and included adolescents belonging to schools selected in areas of socio-economic disadvantage.…”

“…In both these cases, young people participate in the research process by playing a passive role. In this respect, a few scholars [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] have raised concerns about the exclusive use of adult-centered methods: how can researchers fully understand a phenomenon they have not directly experienced or set priorities for interventions? Young people’s understanding of cyberbullying and their experience of new technologies, preferences, values, and culture, are inevitably qualitatively different from those of adult researchers [ 19 , 20 ].…”

“…Another important methodological limitation is that to date, cyberbullying has been mainly studied with samples of white middle-class students [ 17 , 22 ], thus neglecting the perspective, and possibly the active contributions, of young people from areas of socio-economic disadvantage. Although several studies have involved young people from minority groups by investigating different forms of discriminatory cyberbullying (e.g., related to disability [ 23 ] or to minority ethnic groups, [ 24 ]), they mainly employed adult-centered quantitative methods, with few opportunities for these adolescents to have their voice heard and fully recognized [ 17 ].…”

“…By and large, co-participatory approaches [ 9 , 17 ] require that young people are actively involved in the research process from the earliest stages, and share with researchers the power to decide on the study contents, phases, methods, and tools, assuming an agentic role. Young people also share with scholars the responsibility to produce, as well as disseminate, materials, outputs, and innovations.…”

“…Prior research on cyberbullying has mainly been conducted using adult-centered methodological approaches [ 9 ], thus failing to achieve the goal of empowering young people, especially those from areas of socio-economic disadvantage [ 17 ], with a more authentically active and co-participatory role in the research process and the designing of consciousness-raising and intervention materials [ 10 ]. Furthermore, the few co-participatory studies focused on cyberbullying have primarily emphasized the verbal aspects of young participants’ ideas and perceptions [ 27 , 31 ].…”