Social Actions on bullying

A social problem is any certain condition or a group of events that causes public attention/troublesome situation, and requires a change for the betterment of the society and the individuals affected by it. Human beings face plenty of issues in their lives and not all of them become social problems. The construction of social problem highlights how the society defines to be the appropriate way to do things. The critical thinking model has been used to analyze today’s social issue “Bullying”.
What is critical thinking? Basic critical thinking is inquiring the nature of the issue using problem solving skills. It involves maximizing and minimizing parts of the social problem, keeping in mind its’ importance. Changes are required as action plans and hence they need to be clearly identified.
What is bullying? Bullying is any kind of unwanted behaviour where an individual mistreats anyone to a point such that his/her personal or mental stability gets in risk. These situations affect directly the victim and the witnesses, it´s existence and lack of attention affects the human rights of the principal victim and the witnesses.
Who defines bullying? Bullying can be defined in many different ways depending on the nature of bullying. Bullying can be done in various numbers of ways: i. One-on-One, where the stronger individual has the upper-hold of the weaker one. ii. A group of people bullying a single individual. iii. A superior group of people bullying an inferior group of people
Bullying can take place in a number places in various different forms such as: * Bullying in school, workplace, military, prison or other forms of institutional bullying. * Sexual and gay bullying. * Parental and family bullying. * Legal bullying * Cyber-bullying * Disability bullying
The nature of abuse could be verbal, relational, physical or cyber-bullying.
Why is bullying a social problem: Bullying can socially and personally affect an individual to a point where it might lead him/her to lose mental balance or even harm himself/herself. The attacks can be personal, generic, racial, and sexual or caused by any kind of superiority one has over the other person. A social imbalance between two individuals or two groups of people/organizations can very well result in bullying and hence it is a social problem.
Who or what is affected: The victim and witness are affected by bullying. The victim is directly affected by bullying as he/she is the one targeted, and hence the effect is maximum. The witness may be affected depending on the nature and context of the event.
Who benefits and loses: There is no real winner here in most cases unless the bullying is an intentional approach to beat off sheer opposition competition. The loser at most times is the victim. Physical torture can lead to a criminal offence and the offender can get heavy penalty or jail-time. Bullying does not benefit the society. It only makes a person feel stronger than the other person but in the long run benefits none. It’s a lose-lose situation for all.
What is the overall cost to the society: Every citizen of the country is part of the society and equally important and responsible. Bullying affects one’s mental confidence and makes a person fearful of the society. Hence, that individual no more feels a part of the society and cause harm to himself/herself. The cost might not be in terms of money but virtually the society is paying for it.
What are the possible solutions? The possible solutions could be many but it’s very difficult to say what would completely eradicate bullying from the society. The society actively takes part in events to cause awareness on bullying and other social issues. There needs to be a change in approach and it needs to be done universally otherwise it doesn’t help. Cyber-bullying is the most difficult form of bullying to trace and most difficult to stop. The following information has been collected from Statistics Canada: * Canada has the 9th highest rate of bullying in the 13-years-olds category on a scale of 35 countries * At least 1 in 3 adolescent students in Canada have reported being bullied recently * Among adult Canadians, 38% of males and 30% of females reported having experienced occasional or frequent bullying during their school years * 47% of Canadian parents report having a child victim of bullying * Any participation in bullying increases risk of suicidal ideas in youth * The rate of discrimination experienced among students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-identified, Two-Spirited, Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ) is three times higher than heterosexual youth * Girls are more likely to be bullied on the Internet than boys * 7% of adult Internet users in Canada, age 18 years and older, self-reported having been a victim of cyber-bullying at some point in their life * The most common form of cyber-bullying involved receiving threatening or aggressive e-mails or instant messages, reported by 73% of victims * 40% of Canadian workers experience bullying on a weekly basis Bullying is a serious issue, and governments are taking steps to protect kids. For example, Ontario is implementing new anti-bullying legislation in the province's schools this September, and last winter Québec adopted Bill n°56: An Act to prevent and stop bullying and violence in schools. CIHR supports research that looks into the health impacts of bullying. In 2012, CIHR invested $2 million in a study that looks at how schools and community organizations are making a difference in reducing homophobic bullying and improving health and school outcomes for sexual minority youth. An incident to look upon: Amanda Todd, a 15year old girl committed suicide after repeated abuse on social media and bullying in school. Amanda posted a video on YouTube prior to her and used flashcards to tell her story. She expressed her experience just by using flashcards; the experience consisted of bullying, blackmail and physical violence. Todd, when she was grade 7, met a few people on the internet and one of them convinced her to bare her breasts on camera. Having done that, she barely realized what impact it would bring in her life. The stranger blackmailed her repeatedly and her pictures were circulating all over the internet. Her family moved out because of the ongoing situation. Amanda got very depressed and experienced panic disorder and started taking the help of drugs to calm her down. A Facebook profile was opened with her topless picture and she got teased again and it eventually forced her to change school. She stated in the video that she was contacted by one of her old guy friends and they happened to have sex at his house while his girlfriend was away on holiday. His girlfriend and a group of her friends attacked Todd over finding out about the incident and insulted her heavily. Todd attempted suicide bleach but she managed to survive death. Over her survival, people abused her again over her failed attempt of suicide. Amanda Todd hanged herself to death on October 10, 2012, at about 6:00 PM. She fought a lone battle but eventually she had to give up on her life.
How people are affected: Amanda’s story tells us that, the little girl fought and she fought hard. She tried to fight numerous times but eventually she succumbed under the pressure of bullying and she felt she had no other option but to give up her life. Bullying can cause mental pressure, anxiety issues, depression, anger, headache and malnutrition as a result of depression. These are the direct effects of bullying regardless of the nature of bullying. Bullying in school and bullying at workplace result in different effects as the age group of the people involved are different. Cyber bullying is one of the most prevalent kinds of bullying in the current world. Internet is the easiest form of communication in today’s world and as a result we can notice widespread occurrence of cyber-bullying.
Current practice on tackling bullying: As mentioned in the information provided from Statistics Canada, Canadian government is very much involved in tackling bullying. Legal acts have been passed in Ontario and Quebec recently on anti-bullying. While recent statistics might not show instant change, the effect will take place gradually. Bullying at school and workplace can be gradually decreased; while, cyber-bullying is still the hardest form of bullying to tackle. We can still hear derogatory comments made on people’s sexuality, race, and appearance and so on. There are plenty of legal acts on each of these issues but one cannot be found guilty without any proof. The nature of bullying can also cause the victim to get intimidated to file a complaint against the offender.
Views/perspective: Bullying in different parts of the world could be slightly different in nature. Society has certain rules and they are different in different parts of the world because of culture, language, religion and the history of the particular region. Alcohol is thought to be bad and banned by the government while many countries have different legal ages for drinking. This is only a mere example to show how each country is different in terms of its culture to have different views on different things. Based on the way people think, some might even criticize Amanda for her topless act but they probably did not think that the poor girl didn’t know any better because of her age. Bullying should have no different views. There should be only one perspective that it’s wrong every way possible.
Stereotypes: Stereotypes generally state that the bullied victim is too weak to face bullying and cannot stand up for herself/himself. May be sometimes they do, but the opponent is just stronger. If people commit suicide, there are people that bring religious facts in to say the girl/guy committed a sin. But, they have never been in the same situation to give their expert judgments. Victims are loners, socially unaccepted, mentally weak and it takes two to tango. Stereotypes are an unending source of information and are not going away from the world anytime soon.

Reference from class reading/presentation: We can refer to this topic and its characteristics with other topics we have had in readings and class presentations as racism, power and privileges, dominant groups, in fact the coincidental characteristics with these topics and bullying may be the problems created by the misguidance of different social levels, historical background, different cultural origins, political inclination or preferences, environmental behaviour, use of technological means for transmitting or broadcasting contents.
Strategies used to alleviate the issue in the past: There have been several institutions like ONGs and government educational department that have taken action to prevent and manage the bullying social problem. There is no unification of actions so it is still in study the causes of bulling and the exact way to take care of the problem. It’s possible that this lack of standardization is because of the many factors that converge in the bullying action and the many experts that have to discuss each case. In any way the success obtained just by attending the problem has been important and nowadays almost every school in North America and Canada work with similar rules regarding this issue and have reduced the frequency significantly.
Current strategies proposed to tackle bullying: There are several strategies people have proposed to tackle bullying such as: be humorous, walk away, recruit a friend, be friendly, and be assertive that you don’t like the practice of bullying and so on. There have been strategies proposed for parents to look out for their kids to see they are safe. Parents are advised to maintain a friendly relationship with their kids and to make sure they receive all the required social skills. All the strategies discussed above can only help people in difficult circumstances of their lives. It could be in a situation where the person is getting bullied by a strong individual or any other difficult situation where he/she needs to get himself/herself out of trouble.
Recommendation: We have developed a few methods based on researched data and experience of what someone should do in different situations of bullying.
Actions to take when attending School Bullying: * You must intervene immediately, it is recommended to get the help of another adult. * The kids involved should be separated. * The safety of everyone else like bystanders and witnesses should be confirmed. * Get necessary medical or health care. * Give respectful attitude when you take actions.
Actions to avoid when attending School Bullying * You must never ignore it, don’t assume kids can take care of these problems without adult help. * The facts should be revised after the situation has been attended. * The bystander kids should not be forced to say what they saw publicly. * Care should be taken to question the involved kids but not in front of others. * You should talk with the kids involved separately and not together. * There should be no attempt to make the kids involved to apologize on the spot. * You should get police and/or medical help if there is weapons involved, serious physical injury or hate motivated violence such as racism or homophobia.
These are things we can easily do in our daily lives and in different situations. But, we can also cause awareness by doing online forums. We can raise social awareness events in our college and take part in any anti-bullying activist group where they actively take part in eradicating bullying from the society. There are always plenty of things we can do as a responsible citizen as long as the intent is there within our heart.
Action Plan: An action plan that could be done is to create a Facebook page on anti-bullying. There could be information present on various aspects of bullying and its effects including previous incidents to cause awareness among the society. The recommended actions could be included. There should be information about all legal acts that have been enacted by the government on anti-bullying. The page should be an open page for everyone so people can share their views and experiences along with their suggestions on what we could to overcome this issue. An idea of making a YouTube channel on anti-bullying can also be thought of, as videos will make people more aware about this issue.
Conclusion: There is bound to be a fair share of criticism but then that shouldn’t stop us from making an effort. Society is divided into many parts and while some people are very reasoning, others don’t like to miss any change to judge on stereotypes or they don’t know any better about the issue. But, gradually people will be more aware and come out of all odds to join in any kind of anti-bullying action. Cyber-bullying is so effective because it’s widespread and it people use the medium of internet to bully others. Hence, internet is also the medium to cause awareness among the people. The world is currently facing a lot of issues every day and bullying is one of them. It might not be totally eradicated but then an honest effort can really save another Amanda’s life. The action plan could solve problems at the micro/mid-range level. It might take a while to solve issues at the macro-level but it’s no harm believing that it could happen one day.