Researchers
Marilyn Campbell
“Unless we have a culture in schools where the kids aren’t afraid to tell us about bullying then we’re not going to be able to do very much.”
Background Information
Marilyn Campbell is a psychologist and teacher who lectures at QUT in the School of Learning and Professional Studies. She has a Masters degree in guidance and counselling and a PhD in the field of psychology from the University of Queensland. Marilyn has worked as a supervising educational psychologist, a guidance counsellor, a teacher and a teacher-librarian in NSW and Queensland. She has published papers on anxiety in children and adolescents in national and international journals and presented workshops in many conferences. Her other research interests are in bullying, mental health promotion in schools and exceptional children.
Marilyn, how did you come to focus on the area of cyber bullying?
My interest grew out of when I was going to schools and talking to guidance counsellors who were being asked to deal with it but didn’t know what to do.
So what can they do?
There are no quick fixes. If it was that simple, it would have been fixed by now! I believe that aggression – and bullying as a subset of aggression - is a societal problem. It’s embedded so much in our society that people don’t even realise how much it is embedded. Bullying is often only associated with children - and boys in particular. People don’t think about how it occurs in the workplace and in our culture. So, when people ask me how do we stop this with kids I say that if we can stop it with adults – if we don’t model it – then that might be a good start.
What are young people saying about cyber bullying?
We surveyed 120 year 8 students in Queensland and found that:
- 14% said they had been a victim of cyber bullying
- 11% said they had cyber bullied
- 25% said they knew someone who had been cyber bullied
- 50% said it was on the increase
- text messaging and email are the most common methods used
What can school communities do to address cyber bullying?
If we can just do one thing, it would be to create a culture of reporting. At the moment, the reporting we do see is just the tip of the iceberg. We are not encouraging kids to report to us because of the way we deal with it when they do. We need to leave the power with the kids. We should be helping them, not doing the adult “I’ll fix it” thing.
What fascinates you now? What do you think are the next research/challenges to work on?
Cyber bullying is a whole new area. We don’t know any of the consequences of cyber bullying - even though I purport to say that they could be more serious – there’s no research on that. We don’t even know if it’s the same kids who are bullying through technology as would in the playground. And then how are schools going to deal with it when even the law is struggling to keep up.
Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy
© 2008.
For copyright information about this website, and circumstances
in which
reproductions of this website are permitted, please visit our
Copyright Notice.
