Summary recommendations for social networking site providers: Intellectual Output 4 of Blurred Lives Project: A cross-national co-participatory exploration of cyberbullying, young people and socio-economic disadvantage

Welcome to this resource designed for social networking providers by young people across Europe as part of the Blurred Lives Project - a cross-national, co-participatory exploration of cyberbullying, young people and socio-econ omic disadvantage. 
The Blurred Lives Project focuses on the online experiences of 14-16 year olds in schools in disadvantaged urban areas in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and aims to facilitate pupil voice through the creation of resources for teachers, pupils, parents/carers and social networking providers.  
The two-year project (2017-2019) is funded by Erasmus+ under KA2 Strategic Partnerships for School Education, and is led by a team of international experts with a wealth of experience of addressing bullying in schools: Dr Noel Purdy, Stranmillis University College, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Prof Peter K. Smith, Goldsmiths, University of London, England; Prof. Dr. Herbert Scheithauer, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany; Prof Antonella Brighi/Dr Consuelo Mameli, University of Bologna, Italy; and Dr. Trijntje Völlink, Open University of the Netherlands.
In the first phase of the project an online survey was completed by around 500 pupils in 5+ schools in each country, and explored pupils’ online access and negative experiences.  Pupils were first invited to provide background demographic information and to detail the nature and extent of their regular online activity. They were then asked to describe a nasty or unpleasant online experience that had happened to them personally over the past couple of months, to indicate who they had reported it to (if anyone) and what happened as a result.  They were also asked to describe a nasty online experience that had happened to someone else the y know well, and to describe anything nast y or unpleasant that they had done themselves to someone online over the past couple of months.  Finally, the survey invited the young people to provide suggestions as to how teachers, parents/carers and friends could help more.

The second phase aimed to provide up-to-date resources for teachers, pupils and parent/carers, and make important recommendations to Social Networking Providers, building on ideas from the pupils themselves. This was done through a combination of Sequential Focus Groups and Quality Circles, carried out intensively with two classes of 14-16 year old pupils in each country. The first Sequential Focus Group was used to present some of the findings of the survey and to explore pupils’ online experiences in more qualitative detail.  There followed a series of Quality Circles where pupils worked in groups with experienced facilitators to create original resources for particular audiences: teachers, pupils, parents/carers and social networking providers.  The number and length of each session varied between schools and countries, depending on school timetables and availability of time.  However, in each case pupils were encouraged and empowered to work together (often outside normal friendship groups) with a common purpose to design appropriate and targeted guidance and/or resources, and to share their resources with others in their class or year group.  The resulting resources comprise a rich variety of formats including posters, leaflets, videos, comic strips and presentations.  The final two Sequential Focus Groups provided an opportunity for the pupils to provide feedback on the first dr aft of the resources (after which minor revisions could be made) and on their experiences of participating in the Quality Circles.