Blog 23 class from April 18, 2013

I worked on my introduction and lit review from the comments that I received here is the updated verison:

Introduction

Bullying. Why is this topic so important? We hear this term a lot in schools, communities, colleges and society. This term has become very important since the Rutgers incident about two years ago. People were making fun of a student for being gay and he committed suicide because of this incident. More and more people need to become more aware of what the term bullying is and how it affects people of all ages. Now in the state of New Jersey teachers have to be trained in bullying, (harassment, intimidation, and bullying HIB) and cyber bullying. Bullying can be defined as, “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.” (Dictionary.com)Teachers and adults need to know the signs of when a child is being bullied or picked on. This has become very prominent in the schools and the teachers who witness this have to take action to stop it.

Bullying can shape a child’s life for the good and the bad. Either a child learns to overcome it or deal with it or a child will let the bullying bother them through adulthood. We as a society have seen/ read about bullying affecting children. There have been many studies and articles done about childhood bullying. But have we ever read / discovered how adults who were bullied as children are doing today/ dealing with it or overcame bullying? That is why this study needs to be done! We as a society need to explore this situation to better familiar ourselves with adults who have been bullied and how they are doing today.

In a study done by Timo Terasahjo and Christine Salmivalli, they explore children being bullied today and seeing how they are coping with being bullied today. These people interviewed children between the grades of three through sixth. The interviewers were seeing how bullying occurs in a school setting.  I will challenge the way of how we should view adults who have been bullied and focus more of their story instead of just reading another article of how children are dealing with this.

I recently sat down with a young adult who shared her thoughts and views about how she was bullied as a child. I have gotten her feedback about how she dealt with this as a child and how she learned to overcome this part in her life now as an adult. The three codes that will be explored are language (how the person spoke during the interview and the wording choices), emotional connection (this is where the interviewee expressed a deep feeling from her childhood and it was an emotional connection for her) and how the person is dealing with being bullied today (this is where we will see the interviewee overcoming bullying how she is today).

Literature Review

This literature review is called “She is not actually bullied. The discourse of harassment in student groups.” By Timo Terasahjo and Christine Salmivalli. These two people interviewed and observed students in elementary school. They got the students input about how they feel about being bullied.  The researcher has found “Bullying an intentional harm doing, Bullying as harmless, Bullying as justified and Girl’s talk” (Terasahjo, Salmivalli). These are all the forms of bullying that the researchers have found by conducting the study.This study is a good idea to read if you only focus on children. I am more focused about how adults are dealing with bullying. Terasahjo and Salmivaii say, “anti-bullying attitudes were stronger than pro-bullying attitudes.” This might be true, but then how come we as a society always hear of a bullying case every day. We only hear the bad and never the good. I want to know more the positive outcomes of how adults dealt and overcame bullying. In the study the children identified bullying as, “…described indirect (e.g. spreading nasty rumors and social isolation) as well as direct (hitting, name calling) aggressive behavior.”  This is all typical behavior of elementary students. These students are treating others with not a lot of care. The children only care about themselves and that needs to stop. Children need to realize this behavior so that adults who have been bullied will have better outcomes.  Now the big question will be how those students are going to handle these situations. They need to be able to learn from these situations in order to grow and become strong adults. If the students let the other students bother them then the outcomes might be severe if they never learn to overcome being bullied.

“Bullying as justified, including the interpretative repertoires of “odd student” and “deserving” which construct the victim as a negatively deviant student who also deserves to be treated with hostility, are described.”

These are all things that need to be addressed as a young child. Children need to learn how to identify this behavior as negative and report this to an adult or a teacher. This type of behavior needs to stop in order for the children to grow up in a positive way.

In class I also had a meeting to discuses the methods and data. Here are the notes 
* only one or two exaples per section
* language 
          - spacing, not wanting to give information, going back to childhood
* emotional connection
        - not right in the heart 
* Now
          - right in the head and in the heart, confident 

Also I worked on my methods and data here it is:

Methods

            I interviewed KA in a home setting. I now that she felt more comfortable in a home setting rather than a public place. I don’t know if she would have wanted to conduct the interview with a lot of people and quite frankly it would be very noisy. She is now twenty years old and is a junior at a college in south New Jersey.

            I know that this person was bullied as a child and I wanted to get her feedback on her experience. I started out with easy questions and worked my way up. I wanted her to feel comfortable to start off with. I don’t think it would have been a very good idea to just jump right into the questions. I stated off with the easy questions first, where did you live, where did you go to school, how old are you now. I just wanted her to start talking. Then after the basic questions were out of the way it was time to get to the more intense questions. I started asking her questions about what it felt like to be bullied and what her thoughts were, if there was a support system for her and a support system for her now. I wanted to hear the stories that made up her experiences. This is very important because this is where a person who find out the most about another person. I lastly concluded with questions about how she is today and her feeling about bullying now and how it affects students today.

Data

            Since there is so much data collected, I have decided to break it up into three different sections. The titles of the sections are language, emotional connection and how she is dealing with being bullied today. All of these aspects will give the full overview of a young adult’s version of being bullied and how it affects her today.

Language

            I will be looking at the pause that is taken when speaking. In the interview you can see the pauses that KA has taken when giving her interview. This is all reflected about her experiences with bullying.

K:  well um do you remember if J was ever .like if there to help you with anything

KA:  yeah um I don’t know if she knew a lot of it was going on I can’t remember if she was… cause it all happened in my science teachers class so I don’t remember if she was in there or that class with me or not

K:  yeah

KA:  and I don’t know if anyone else at the time said anything I just …..

K:  yeah

KA:  it really mean and I did not know how…. to stick up for myself at that age so…. I just ended up…. kind of miserable 

            The three dots represent a long pause between words. KA was very hesitant when giving her answers. She stopped to take a lot of breaks when answering the different questions. You can tell that she is nervous when speaking by the ums and the pauses. It almost sounds like KA does not want to give out the wrong information to the interviewer. She wanted to sound correct in everything that was being said. These are her feelings and feelings are never wrong especially when it comes to this subject matter.

            KA also stumbles over the words that she has spoken. I am still not really sure what she thinks about bullying from the discussion that we had.

I don’t know…either that or they were just plain bullies …. And they just… maybe they did it to everybody else they just said some pretty harsh words and haha I forget what they were but haha I do remember crying during class and I remember it was 2 of the guys haha and…

            The haha pauses are just a way of trying to lighten up the mood. This laughing pause is a feel of uncertainty. She is trying to lighten up the mood on a very tough subject to handle. It is hard for anyone to talk about what happened to them when they were younger especially when it is something that hurts you directly.

Emotional Connection

            Everyone has deep emotion ties to something that has happened to them when they were younger especially when it hurts you. KA has a deep emotional connection that she is still unsure about. The information that she says is still not right with her heart. She says it but you can tell that she is still in the past with her language.

K:  did anyone give you like any special advice either teachers or friends or any special advice like how to handle all these situations

KA:  … back in the day probably not haha I just remembered after a while I started just crying and not taking to anybody cause I realized that if I said anything people would yeah that’s another reason why I was really quite in middle school was because I was afraid to say anything I was afraid of being bullied after that I was afraid that if I said something… and it came out the wrong way people would take it differently and start making fun of me so I don’t know if I got any real advise…. to me it was kind of like yeah I should not really say anything

            Her language sounds like she is back when she was nine years old. She has entered that aspect in her life and by the wording it sounds like she does not want to go back there. It still holds a place in her heart and exactly sure if she wants to break away from it. This still hold meaning to her that she does not want to let go. In this language she wants to say the right thing and that she does not want to sound wrong. But here she just let it all out and spoke what was truly in her heart. I am not exactly sure if she got over it in her head.

  How she is dealing with being bullied today

            When I asked KA these questions she was very confident. She is confident in her head and in her heart. In here she does not stumble on her words and is very confidents when she is speaking with me.

K:  it’s so huge now the reports and everything its crazy but if you saw a child bullied today would what advice would you give them

KA:  what advice would I give them I would defiantly tell them to reach out and to talk to other people to get help like if its child being bullied like they should defiantly go to either a teacher of a friend or anybody and like somebody could intercept or do something about it like defiantly stick up for yourself don’t …. Don’t just take it … if somebody is being mean to you do something about it

KA:  I have a better perspective of what bullies like to do like how they go about bullying other people so I have I feel like I’ll be able to see that type of situation happening and if that happens I be able to like go and stop it from happening I will like be able to like talk to both parties and what’s like happening and make sure that they don’t do it either and talk to their parent

 In this part you can see that KA has a very positive outcome in life and that she has overcome bullying. She sounds more confident here than she did when she was describing her childhood. She talks without any pauses and has great advice for children who are being bullied today. It sounds like to me that she is okay with being bullied in the head and in the heart.