Karin Naruskov, the information specialist of the Library, defended her PhD thesis on the 30th of March. Theme of the dissertation: „Küberkiusamise tajumine Eesti õpilaste seas küberkiusamise kriteeriumite ja liikide kontekstis. The perception of cyberbullying among Estonian students according to cyberbullying types and criteria“.

The aim of the thesis was to research whether and to what extent criteria specific to traditional bullying apply in the cyber environment. It has been suggested that there might be some cyber-specific criteria; for instance, anonymity and publicity, which could describe bullying that occurs in the cyber world more accurately. Furthermore, researchers have raised the issue of whether the definition of cyberbullying is consistent with how students perceive the phenomenon. This thesis focuses on how students perceive cyberbullying based on suggested criteria (intentionality, repetition, imbalance of power, publicity, anonymity) and the type of cyberbullying behaviour (written-verbal cyberbullying, visual cyberbullying, impersonation, exclusion).

The practical value of the work lies in providing suggested themes that should be addressed with students at home and in the school environment to help boys and girls and students of different ages cope with the specifics of cyber communication. Furthermore, some recommendations are also provided for the definition and measurement of cyberbullying.

Supervisors of the thesis are Piret Luik (PhD, Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, Estonia) and prof. Ersilia Menesini (PhD, Department of Education, Languages, Intercultures, Literatures and Psychology, University of Florence, Italy) . The opponent of the thesis is prof. Maritta Välimäki (PhD, University of Turku, Finland).

Dissertation is available at digital archives of EMU DSpace and University of Tartu DSpace.