ICT tools for tackling bullying in schools: an analysis and opportunities

Abstract

[EN] Bullying is defined as the act of repeatedly and intentionally causing harm to another person who feels helpless (i.e., the victim) against the perpetrator or group of perpetrators. These series of acts of physical and/or psychological violence have been reported to cause a negative impact on the victim on several aspects of his/her well-being and daily life. Recently, multidisciplinary research teams have noticed the potential of ICT tools as catalysts for fighting bullying in schools. A range of ICT-based tools such as elearning systems, intelligent tutoring systems, gamified applications, analytics, or even artificial intelligence have been proposed as technological assets against bullying. In this paper, we identify, categorize, and analyse the use of these ICT tools against bullying under a wide range of criteria such as their role (e.g., prevention, mitigation, detection, etc.), the potential investment that is required, the target age of users, and strengths and weaknesses of each tool. Then, we discuss on potential areas of expansion for the use of ICT tools in the fight bullying, and we identify new potential areas of research.