Empowering Responsible Digital Citizens: A Survey of Cyberbullying and Digital Citizenship Among Adolescents in an International School

Abstract

As schools become increasingly reliant on digital platforms for learning and communication, the responsible and humane use of technology has become central to learner wellbeing. This mixed-methods study examined cyberbullying involvement, the forms it takes, adolescents' awareness of responsible digital citizenship, and teacher-leaders' school-based responses within an international school context. Quantitative data were gathered through the Adolescent Online Behaviour and Digital Practices Survey administered to 30 students from Years 7 to 11, with descriptive statistics computed in IBM SPSS (v.24). Qualitative data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with two purposively selected teacher-leaders and analysed using Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis. The findings indicate that cyberbullying is present across victim, perpetrator, and bystander roles, with hostile messaging, rumour-spreading, online exclusion, sharing of private content, and impersonation among the reported forms. Students demonstrated strong awareness of responsible online conduct, yet confidence in reporting incidents to teachers was notably weaker, with the majority of respondents undecided. Teacher-leaders consistently framed cyberbullying as a wellbeing and safeguarding concern, described detection as dependent on student reporting and digital evidence, and identified inconsistent policy implementation as a central challenge. The study contributes contextualised insight into digital citizenship and cyberbullying in international schooling and offers practical implications for humanising technology-rich learning environments through clearer reporting pathways, coordinated whole-school responses, and sustained digital citizenship education.