Perceptions of cyber bullying at primary and secondary school level amongst student teachers in the eastern cape province of South Africa

Abstract

Cyber bullying has become a topical issue in South Africa. However, there is very little guidance or training for teachers on how to deal with cyber bullying in the classroom. This study investigated the perceptions of cyber bullying amongst student teachers in the Eastern Cape. The study made use of a quantitative survey approach to collect data from 150 student teachers at a university in the Eastern Cape. The student teachers were representative of all three school phases. The results indicated that almost half of the student teachers had been victims of cyber bullying. Overall, cyber bullying was considered a serious issue for the student teachers but awareness of the prevalence of the issue decreased outside the classroom. The topic has not been incorporated into policy or the school curriculum in South Africa. The study recommends that the Department of Basic Education must provide a standardised policy and curriculum that schools can use to implement and enforce cyber safety behaviour in the schools. © the author(s); published under a Creative Commons NonCommercial 4.0 License (CC BY-NC 4.0).