Research trends on the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and school bullying: a theoretical review
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This article presents a theoretical review of research trends that link the use of artificial intelligence (AI) with school bullying and cyberbullying in educational settings. A search was conducted in Scopus, Web of Science (Core Collection), ERIC, SciELO, Redalyc, and Dialnet, covering publications from 2018 to 2025. The strategy combined Boolean queries in Spanish and English, descriptor normalization, and snowballing through chained references; studies were included when they reported an explicit educational application (primary and secondary education) and a stated methodology, and duplicates, opinion pieces without evidence, and studies outside the school context were excluded. After a two-stage screening process (title/abstract followed by full text) and data extraction using a standardized form, the thematic synthesis identified five trends: (1) cyberbullying detection using natural language processing and text mining; (2) learning analytics and predictive models for early warning; (3) chatbots and conversational agents for psychoeducation, reporting, and support; (4) computer vision and sensing in school spaces, alongside debates on privacy, proportionality, and consent; and (5) students’ and teachers’ perceptions of AI (trust, usefulness, and ethics). The analysis discusses conditions for educational validity—representative corpora, explainability, fair evaluation, and bias mitigation—and proposes a layered conceptual model to integrate these tools with institutional protocols and response pathways. It emphasizes human oversight, responsible data governance, and contextual adaptation to local coexistence policies and resources. Strengthening teacher professional development and informed student participation is recommended. Finally, research gaps are outlined, highlighting longitudinal evaluations, effectiveness studies in real-world scenarios, and analyses of unintended effects on school climate.
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