preview

Bullying: A Functional Analysis

Decent Essays
Open Document

Bullying is defined as a dynamic and repetitive and persistent patterns of verbal and / or non-verbal behaviors directed by one or more children on another child that are intended to deliberately inflict physical, verbal or emotional abuse in the presence of a real or perceived power differential (Selekman and Vessey). In other words, it is a group of people who directed an act to threaten, hurt or frighten that individual when he is unable to defend himself. The article outlined and covered the details of bullying – corresponding behaviors, place, time and reasons of bullying, what intervention works and does not work. It is thorough and analytical; clear and specific.
According to Robert Merton, he defines that functional analysis views society …show more content…

Deviance helps to clarify moral boundaries and affirms norms – as bullying is one of the way to be deviant; we usually divide ourselves as people being bullied or the bully, we would identify characteristics of bring a bully or a victim, marking the boundary that if we get pass the line, we will be another party. Moreover, it promotes social unity thus leads to corresponding social changes. As we group and identify ourselves as victim or bully or rarely – third party, we would view another one as people are deviating if we put ourselves into a bully or victim’s identity. We would form a tight bond and look for commonality or agreement amongst your group, promoting social unity. As circumstances change, it will lead to social change when the issue intensifies or gets better. These deviance – bullying will serve as a function in a society, as a result, emphasizing social order.
Symbolic Interaction shows how people use symbols in everyday life to view the world and communicate with one another. Symbols are things to which we attach meaning, it gibes names to things, define our relationships and help us plan for future events. It also studies face-to-face interaction, examines how people make sense out of life and their place in it and analyze how social life depends on the way we define ourselves and others. Our society establish meaning, develop views of world, and communicate (Henslin, …show more content…

One usually becomes mature as they face something tough during adolescence, we start to get detached from our childhood and face our reality. Bullying is one of the ways of communication, people playing different parts in bullying changes how one views themselves and the society around them.
According to Karl Marx, conflict theory explains the circumstances when groups competing for power and scarce resources. Nowadays, it means opposing interests in every layer of society (families, groups, organizations, a community or an entire society). It can be viewed as positive as it can bring about positive change, such as feminists and conflict theory – it challenges the fact that men should dominate the society (Henslin, 2013).
In the early few chapters of part 1, some bullies were introduced, such as Cody Perkins, Clay Whelan and Sullivan. Andre and his brother Jeb were always beaten up and being sworn on their face. Those people – Cody, Clay and Sullivan (Andre, 2011) are bullied or gang members of the community, they have conflict over who should be taking control of the group. Although out protagonist didn’t mean to compete with them, but they still see others who didn’t obey them as a threat. Thus Andre and his brother were

Get Access
Related
Get Access