Cyberbullying and education: A review of emergent issues in Latin America research

Abstract

This chapter reviews the body of research on cyberbullying and its various manifestations on the Internet and social networks from a Latin American perspective. We start by discussing the advances and unsolved issues of Latin American studies and the importance of redirecting research toward more complex social and educational interventions. It is necessary to broaden the spectrum of understanding and intervention to comprehensive perspectives in which personal, social, and cultural factors become essential. This overview shows that although research has demonstrated the relationship between traditional bullying and cyberbullying with homophobic, sexist, racist, and discriminatory situations, most of the studies have ignored the systemic relationships of the phenomenon with attitudes reinforced and modeled by the adult society. This chapter introduces a broader look that transcends the individual analysis of cyberbullying and that could reorient the focus of the analysis toward the study of the complex factors involved in it and their interrelationships; this may contribute to structural and structured actions leading to the prevention of this phenomenon, especially those based on citizenship education.