Cyberbullying Detection and Schools

Cyberbullying Detection and Schools

              

               Social media is extremely popular among today’s youth and while social media can provide great ways to keep in touch with people it also provides the opportunity for the emergence of cyberbullying.  Cyberbullying can be anything like messages, images or videos that are intended to make someone feel negatively about themselves and/or embarrass them in some way.  Cyberbullying is very harmful to for the victims increasing their risk for anxiety, depression, substance abuse and mental illness.  It can also lead to violent behaviors such as carrying weapons to school, physical fighting, and even school shootings (Dredze).  Through the technology that is available today it is possible to detect and potentially prevent cyberbullying, however this is hindered due to privacy concerns and free speech rights of the students.

                Today’s technology has allowed for the creation of certain programs that can aid in detecting cyberbullying.  These programs generally work by examining language with the objective of detecting “sensitive topics, such as sexuality, race/culture, intelligence and physical attributes, flagging negative comments that contain profanity and insults, and general identification of offensive language.” (Dredze).  Additionally, the use of algorithms to look for more subtle bullying or taking gender into consideration can help improve the results of these programs even further (Dredze).  Programs such as this can help schools to more easily identify when cyberbullying is occurring among students since it is rarely reported by students.  Furthermore, the technology can be used to set up a system in which empathy is promoted and victims are provided with the necessary resources to cope with cyberbullying.

                Despite the existence of this technology many schools question whether or not they can use it or other methods to detect cyberbullying without violating the free speech or privacy of students.  In some schools the law agrees that they are within their legal rights to take action against what students do online outside of school such as in a September 2013 case where a student was suspended for writing threatening messages on Myspace (Sengupta).  However, there are also cases where the law has denied that schools were in the legal right such as in a 2011 Indiana court case that stated that the school was in the wrong when they disciplined a group of girls for posting lewd pictures on Facebook (Sengupta).  This ambiguity in what actions they are and are not allowed to take against student’s online activity often seems to hinder what they schools are willing to do in monitoring and disciplining of this activity.

              If schools are not given the legal right to take action against student’s online activity then the development of the detection software may not have the desired effect of helping to end cyberbullying.  As previously mentioned victims of cyberbullying are often more prone to violent behavior and by allowing schools to intervene in bullying they could possibly also be avoiding future incidents with the victims acting out violently as a result of their bullying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/technology/some-schools-extend-surveillance-of-students-beyond-campus.html?pagewanted=1&ref=cyberbullying&_r=0

Reader: "Understanding Factors of Youth Violence Through the Study of Cyberbullying" by Mark Dredze

Is Media Violence to Blame?

In the Youth Violence: What We Need to Know reports, the main topic that these psychology professionals are investigating is the relationship between youth and media violence. Essentially what each study is looking at varies from the type of media experienced to the personality type of the child, but overall, the results have shown a increased incident of violence in youth with the increased exposure to media violence. In the first study, Bushman looks at the effects that media violence such as those through video games have on violence and antisocial behavior. Bushman found that youth that are exposed to violent video games are at risk for increased aggressive behavior and thoughts as well as a decrease in prosocial behavior. However, in the second study, Calvert finds that certain types of personalities and genders may be more vulnerable to violent media. For example, males may be more vulnerable due to gender schemas that identify certain acts and traits with masculinity and that situations that reward or don't punish violent act (like video games) can promote the idea that killing is associated with rewards/status. The third study, Downey researched rejection and youth reaction. During this study, he differentiated two categories of youth-the first is the normal reaction that deals with self-regulation and the second are youth that are more sensitive to rejection. He finds that youth that are more sensitive to rejection often find rejection a threat to their self image or identity and lash back/react immediately and without self regulation.

            These studies ultimately reflect the repetition of depiction of youth as both dependent and in need of saving and study by presenting this issue of media violence as something youth have to be saved from. Youth are also depicted as dependent because the studies are suggesting that it is the parent's job and decision as well as the state's responsibility to make sure youth aren't exposed to media violence (whether it is through their rating system or banning violent games all together). Through Bushman's study, it can clearly be seen that there is a fear of another mass murder/youth rampage situation by their example of Columbine, therefore this fear has led to the conclusion that it is the parent's responsibility to keep their children from exposure to violence. However, I feel that the conclusion was misleading in the sense that correlation doesn't mean causation- that even though there is an increase in aggression with the increase of the presence of guns, it doesn't mean the guns caused it. For example, just by having a gun doesn't mean you're bound to be more aggressive just as if you own a vacuum doesn't mean you're more inclined to be clean. Calvert's study even makes a point to say that those few youth that commit violence from media violence is an extreme or outlier in terms of statistics. These two studies are very reminiscent of the fear shown during the youth-as-dangerous time period, where youth are essentially deemed dangerous due to paranoia (in this case from isolated school shootings). Downey study is also reminiscent of Hall's study where he classifies the vulnerable age for rejection sensitivity as adolescence ("storm & stress").

Bushman, Brad J. 2013, "Media Violence and Youth Violence," Pp. 12-13 in Youth Violence: What We Need to Know- Report of the subcommittee on Youth Violence of the Advisory Committee to the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation

Calvert, Sandra L. 2013. "Youth Violence: Influences of Exposure to Violent Media Content." Pp. 14-15 in Youth Violence: What We Need to Know- Report of the subcommittee on Youth Violence of the Advisory Committee to the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation

Downey, Geraldine. 2013. "Rejection and Lethal Violence". Pp. 16-17 in Youth Violence: What We Need to Know- Report of the subcommittee on Youth Violence of the Advisory Committee to the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation

Implications of Interstitial Areas

True to the “outside-in” approach to social science that his colleagues at the University of Chicago utilized, Thrasher’s study in The Gang focused on understanding context in order to make sense of individual and group behavior. Thrasher posits that the gang “is largely an adolescent phenomenon” because adolescence is a liminal, interstitial stage between childhood and adulthood. He highlights the importance of incorporation in social institutions such as family structure (during childhood) and marriage (during adulthood) to explain why gang membership from these age groups is not common. Thrasher argues that the interstitial nature of adolescence, coupled with what he calls “interstitial areas,” constitute the ideal breeding grounds for gangs. While I do believe gangs form partly in response to institutional failures of society, Thrasher’s depiction of slums as petri dishes for the development of gangs can have negative – even classist and racist – underpinnings.

            Thrasher contends that slums are spaces of “disorganization and decay,” making them “favorable to the development of gang life.” According to him, the disintegration of institutions such as family life, schools, and religion are reasons why gangs are forming in these interstitial areas (this, of course, espouses the youth-as-dependents and youth-as-objects-of-saving-and-study representations). Thrasher calls the gang a “symptom” of disorganization in society, and cites the difference in gang presence between more affluent areas and slums as evidence. In places such as Minneapolis, which has the “best resident districts and the better middle-class section,” gangs are nonexistent. Thrasher points to areas like east sections of Los Angeles and industrial cities like Chicago as “gang-lands.” He explains that these places are teeming with gangs because they are economic, moral, and cultural frontiers. Even though Thrasher did not mention it explicitly, these interstitial “gang-lands” tend to be where low-income, immigrant families lived. Chicago was a global city where many immigrants from Eastern Europe and African American migrants from the South came to search for work. Therefore, when Thrasher calls these areas “interstitial,” or areas in transition, one has to wonder what he believed these slum communities were transitioning to and from. I wonder if Park and Burgess’ idea of the “natural cycle” – the eventual assimilation of people into the “greater American society” – influenced Thrasher’s perception of what was “interstitial”. This is not to discount valid points that are found in Thrasher’s study nor to deny the prevalence of gangs in these cities, but to say that social organization is “underdeveloped” in low-income areas can lead to negative representations and stereotypes about the residents of these cities. This may kindle and perpetuate the representation of youth-as-a-dangerous class in general, and urban youth as especially threatening in particular.

To be fair, Thrasher mentions valid points about the disintegration of institutions leading to low wages and unemployment as factors for gang formation. However, when he captions a photograph of a group of young boys, “if it were located in a slum, this group will probably be a ‘gang in embryo,’” (11) that can have problematic implications in how inner-city youth are viewed.

Juvenile Crime and the Role of Education

In “Juvenile Crime”, Albert S. Beckham seeks to analyze the factors that contribute to adolescent criminality. His discussion includes immaturity, group dynamics, sexuality, level and type of intelligence, success in school, gender, race, living conditions, and individual constitution of character. His analysis of the impact of the school environment is particularly insightful, and still relevant to understanding juvenile delinquency. He says, “Through the whole period of growth, during the whole course of his immaturity, he is held to be plastic, capable of infinite modifications... ‘The school as well as home...needs to undertake a more specialized type of training to prevent the delinquency and at the same time to eradicate the anti-social reactions that have been formed.’” Beckham seems to adhere to the “youth-as-dependents” and “youth-as-objects-of-saving-and-study” perspectives. He clearly endorses a Parens Patriae approach, insisting that the school must take on a particularly involved role to ensure the well-being of the child (especially when he or she exhibits social and/or behavioral problems). While his perspective is certainly an adult-centered on, Beckham recognizes that individual variation necessitates specialized attention and treatment, and that expecting all types of young people to thrive under the same kind of instruction is unrealistic. “The public school system concentrates on educational service for normal children...The problem child is lost in this mass instruction.”

The ability to succeed in an educational environment is of extreme value to any young person, and is especially critical in determining future potential. As was established by the Supreme Courts in Goss v. Lopez, students have a direct property interest in being able to attend school, in part because it bears so significantly on which opportunities will or will not be available to them during the course of their adult life. Considering Beckham’s perspective, this property interest is not only in being able to attend, but in at least having the opportunity to succeed. It would not be realistically possible to ensure that every young person graduate with a high school diploma or a stellar GPA (you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink), but Beckham is correct in his assertion that a standardized system of education disadvantages any child that isn’t “normal,” or that displays an aptitude for things outside the realm of traditional education, like mechanics and professions commonly taught in trade schools. While a more individualized approach to education and school discipline would not remedy juvenile delinquency entirely (as Beckham clearly states, it is a multifaceted issue), it could certainly minimize one part of the problem. 

Violent Video Games: Corrupting our Children?

Brad Bushman depicts media violence as one of the possible risk factors for violence among youth. When people are exposed to violent media, they become less impacted by it, to the point that it becomes normalized and increases violent behavior. Bushman argues that youth who are socially rejected due to aggressive behavior oftentimes find recluse in violent video games, which in turn can increase aggression, creating a “downward spiral” for the individual who is shunned by their peers.  Bushman’s depictions of youth demonstrate the adult centered perspective that invalidates the agency that youth have and views them as “youth as dependents”, who are also a danger to society.

            The notion that youth should be restrained from playing violent video games is reminiscent of “youth-as-dependents” due to the underlying assumption that youth are unable to make the right decisions for themselves.  According to this study, an adult, especially the parents, must be in charge of limiting the violence that youth are exposed too.  If they are unable to identify the violent media, Bushman and his colleagues suggest that there be better training for parents and a clearer rating system, like when the US surgeon general issued a warning on tobacco in 1964. The responsibility of the parent and the surgeon general is reminiscent of Parens Patriae, in which the nation holds the right to care for the child if the parent is unable to fulfill their parental duties. In this case, if the parents are unable to distinguish between the appropriate content for the children and the violent video games, then it is suggested that the government put in labels to help the parents make the right choice for their kids. The parental role of the government is continued in the recent tax reform bill, proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee, which ban violent video game makers from receiving their R&D Tax Credit. The fact that it is only violent video game makers and not other types of violent media demonstrates that this move is strictly based on the idea that violent video games corrupt youth. Since parental guidance has not kept violent video games away from under-aged youth, the tax reform bill would punish these companies to deter them from producing violent video games.

            There are also indications of youth as dangerous within Bushman’s study. Bushman mentions the violent shooting sprees that have been plaguing the media, specifically, the Columbine shootings in which the shooters mentioned that their actions would soon become well-known films. The notion that youth are shooting people to reach some sort of recognition by society implies that youth lack the ability to rationalize their thoughts and are instead led by their emotions.  The warning that aggressive youth who are rejected from society tend to gather with other aggressive youth, making them more aggressive, and therefore more dangerous clearly shows the persistent adult-centered fear of the super-predators that threaten society’s order. The efforts to restrict media violence, specifically video games, among youth demonstrates the continued belief that youth must be taken care of so that they do not lose their morality.

Bushman, Brad J., Margaret Hall, and Robert Randal. Youth Violence What We Need to Know: Media Violence and Youth Violence. National Science Foundation, 2013. Print.

Peckham, Matt. "Inane Tax Reform Bill Provision Would Sting Makers of “Violent Video Games”." Time. 27 Feb. 2014. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

Gangs, Refuge of the Troubled Souls?

Adolescence is defined as the transitional stage between childhood and adulthood, during which one experiences uncountable psychological and biological changes. This stage of “storm and stress,” as referred by Stanley Hall, is characterized by the seeking of self-identity, the tendency to rebel, and the growing development of a once-blurry sense of moral. For that reason, peer pressure and influence impose considerable impact on youngsters, which are likely to lead them to criminal and delinquent behaviors. In fact, many societies have long considered youth violence and gangs as real social issues, and many studies have been conducted as an endeavor to find answer and solution to this phenomenon.

            First, gang satisfies the lack of social organizations of youths, and is the remedy to their expeditions to seek for self-identity. In truth, by providing to its members “a sense of belonging, of pride and honor,” (Esperanza 20), gang plays the role of a interstitial society that youth created for themselves, in which they find the replacements to what the family and/or the society fail to deliver. Moreover, during gang’s activities, not only do its member find themselves living in freedom without adult’s interference and acting above social anchorages and boundaries, but they also obtain the “sense of power and control over a specific geographic area, a certain group of people and even their own lives,” (Esperanza 20). Psychologists often imply that “human struggle for existence and social preferment,” (Thrasher 217) is one of the reasons youth join gangs. It is not quite surprising when members often refer to their peers and gangs as “family.” In other words, gang can be considered as the social space that youth carve out to supply themselves with sentimental, material and peer supports.

            Just like any ordinary social organization, gangs possess their own and distinct cultures. The majority of gangs is developed from spontaneous playgroups where members have known each other since childhood, or is composed of strangers connected one to another by mutual interests. There exists group consciousness and code of honor within the gangs, in which their members have the tendency to attach one to another throughout different activities, either violent or quiet, and face-to-face relation is considered intimate and crucial. Moreover, the role and status of each member are mostly determined by various gang’s activities, which usually involve competition and conflict, as well as through different social interactions. Furthermore, studies have found just as much solidarity, loyalty and morale development among gang’s members as within any other social organizations. However, gangs are widely observed as an “adolescent phenomenon” due to its lack of longevity and the ease of disintegration. In truth, gang solely occupies during a period of life when one is struggling to readjust to the liminality between childhood and adulthood and perishes when its members find other social and familial attachments.

            Finally, violence plays a variety of roles in the operation of youth gangs. It is the systemic behavior that is usually perceived as the manner to respect and reputation, which in turns determines one’s status and position. In addition, external conflicts tend to boost esprit de corps and thus improve internal solidarity. Violence can also play the role of emotional gratification when the gangs are mobs nucleus and fighting becomes a sort of group performance or self-identification.

-Anh Ha-

Gangs 101

"Social Instinct" vs "Gang Instinct"

Frederic M. Thrasher argues ganging is recognized by young age as “gang instinct.” However, Thrasher claims other writers have consider ganging a form of “social instinct” believing that youth behavior develop at a young age. A division between “gang instinct” and “social instinct” was characterized as a relation to individuals claiming instinct is a condition not a social relation.  While he stresses arguments of “gang instinct,” this article displays a developmental stage of mind and body. Thrasher examines the notable argument that “gang instinct” is false evidence to youth gang life.

Thrasher disputes the gang instinct as a natural characteristic of our social order and a formation of small groups. For instance, children developed their own groups in their living conditions and their surrounding environments. Small or big neighborhoods children find their way to develop their new cliques. The majority of gangs develop from spontaneous playgroups. Young boys come together to contribute in the pleasure, crowd, in the goal of forming a group. This gives an idea that play-group acquire a form of organization and a standing that leaders form. It does not become a formation of gang until opposition or enemies are presented. This shows that youth groups become “gangs” with opposition to other peer groups and adult suspicion or hostility. Thrasher gives an example of parents and neighbors step in and try to break up the play-group in suspicion of gang formation.  However, this only forms more conflict and greater acts of criminality. Professor Morrill discusses that most youth affiliations do not evolve into gangs but into clubs. Clubs referring to adult supervision comparable to Thrasher model of “Aunt Sarah’s Bunch” allowing boys to be free at her house. The boys had no formal organization nor anyone was considered the leader. Instead there was a group-consciousness that follows a form of structure.

Another point Thrasher explains is that many writers have consider the argument of “social instinct” a form of ganging indicating that human behavior is the main structure of forming a gang. For instance, a group of boys find themselves contributing to the idea of gang because they have similar interest or same age group who spend most of their time together and form the club.  This creates a situation complex as discussed in lecture is the idea getting actors and understanding their social organization in school or family. This relates to the idea point of “social instinct” showing a behavioral understanding to become a gang.

            According to “As Study of Social Psychology” by L.L. Bernard studies the nature of instinct and argues the idea “social instinct” a procedure of “not concrete facts.” He describes that instinct represents only biological and a mental process.  Instead Bernard presents the field of sociology to distinct his scientific study of discipline towards the contribution of environment and the control of “social instinct.” One can assume that Thrasher study demonstrates behavioral characterization of ganging and that “social instinct” is no longer the bases of human behavior.  

-Marisol Lopez

Thrasher, M. Frederic. The Gang A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: University Press, 1927. Print.

“As Study of Social Psychology” by L.L. Bernard 
www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Kantor/Kantor_1924_5.htmt