A school's duty to provide a safe learning environment: Does this include cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is now recognised as a new form of bullying especially amongst young people. While the consequences of this insidious way of bullying have not been fully explored, it would seem it could be extremely detrimental to both the victims and the perpetrators. Schools in Australia and New Zealand are required to have anti-bullying policies but many have not considered cyberbullying to be in their jurisdiction as cyberspace has no geographical boundaries. This article examines the legal issues of cyberbullying and schools' responsibility under the civil law for cyberbullying and the criminal ramifications of such conduct.

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