Illustration pupils in a school. – G. VARELA / 20 MINUTES
- In their “equal to equal” project, DUT information communication students from IUT Robert-Schuman at the University of Strasbourg used TikTok or Instagram to fight against bullying and cyberbullying at school.
- On social networks, they offer college or high school students solutions to find help, “to talk about it”, to dare to tackle the issue “head-on” with your parents and not to be left alone in the face of harassment.
Harassment and cyberstalking have become as widespread this year as the coronavirus epidemic. Just for last year, the association
e-Childhood recorded a 57% increase in cyberviolence on its Net Ecoute helpline, a platform for protecting minors on the Internet and helping digital parenting. As feared, this increase in cases testifies to the violence present on the web and which particularly affects the youngest, college students, “always on their cell phone”. Finding out about cyberstalking, which has more than doubled in one year, also means realizing a certain powerlessness on the part of all those involved (family, national education, passive witness) but also getting them to better identify their own profile: victim, harasser, follower, passive witness, witness engaged in cases of harassment.
It is from this sad reality that DUT information communication students of IUT Robert-Schuman of the University of Strasbourg worked on a project called “equal to equal” for high school students from the academy. An educational project to fight against bullying and school cyberbullying as part of a competition between several French universities. The final between the four qualified projects is scheduled for June 25, but the importance is not there for the students.
A need for information and listening
After a round table discussion with their project manager, the professor Martial Libera
HDR lecturer in contemporary history, the group of students once again found that several of them, in their own group, had to pay the costs during their schooling. They then took up this question with questionnaires distributed online, in partnership with elected representatives of the Academic Council for High School Life at the Strasbourg Academy, the students of Illkirch. Objective, “to take stock, put words into action, identify harassment, know the penalties incurred, raise awareness and inform” jointly explain Maëlys Ziani-Nadal and Alice Daniel, two of the students of the project. “We realized how harassed people don’t know who to turn to. We had to give them all the numbers in our possession and they were really keen. Sometimes they don’t even know the essential numbers. “
Our file on cyberbullying
Passing by TikTok videos, or an account
Instagram, Harc’helpers, the students proposed solutions to find help, “to talk about it”, to dare to approach the issue “head-on” with his parents and not to remain alone in the face of harassment. “We have had a lot of feedback on the lack of listening, the involvement of teachers, teaching teams, administrative staff” remarked the students. So there is still a long way to go to stem this scourge, even if, as Ziani-Nadal and Alice Daniel point out, “everyone can and must act, in their own way and on their own scale”.