A survey conducted by Plymouth University has revealed that online bullying is not limited to students, with over one-third of teachers saying that they were bullied by pupils and parents of their pupils.
The BBC reported that most of the respondents who claimed they were victims of online bulying were women.
Of the respondents, 35% of teachers revealed that they had been the victim of some form of online abuse, of which 60% were women.
Cyber bullies used chats on social networks, YouTube videos and Facebook groups to abuse teachers.
Most of the abuse were from pupils. The study found that while 72% of cyber bullying came via pupils, 26% parents were involved in the bullying.
The author of the report Prof Andy Phippen said, "This parental abuse is something we haven’t come across before."
"Sometimes they are abusing other children at the school as well. Schools need to clamp down on it, or it will increase in prevalence," he added.
"It seems to a subset of the population the teacher is no longer viewed as someone who should be supported in developing their child’s education, but a person whom it is acceptable to abuse if they dislike what is happening in the classroom," said Prof Phippen.
"Clearly some people are viewing social media as a bypass to the traditional routes (head teacher, board of governors) of discussing dissatisfaction with the school," he added.
Rceently, another survey by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University had found that 18.4% of young people were cyber-bullied.
The study found that while 22% girls had been subjected to cyber-bullying, 13.5% boys said they had faced it, according to the report.
A significant large number (66%) of the young respondents said they either knew a victim or had witnessed cyber-bullying.
