Case Scenario
The scenario involves an adolescent African American boy bullied by a group of white classmates since he was black and overweight. Since white students dominated the classroom, none reported to the class teacher or the administration. The victim developed feelings of helplessness and his performance dropped drastically. The class teacher and parents to the victim were concerned that everything was not right, but he could not speak of the tormenting situation he was going through. Another black boy in the same classroom became overly concerned about the victim's situation and befriended him. He empathized with him and promised to revenge on behalf of his black “brother”. As the group of white students were walking home one day, they were attacked and badly injured by the black student and his peers. This scenario portrays how bullying on one student can cause feelings of victimization on another one and prompt retaliation. This situation causes a vicious cycle of victimization events when not addressed appropriately.
Social Work Interventions that can Change this Cycle of Events
Bullying involves the deliberate and repeated exposure of individuals to negative actions. Bullying is associated with an imbalance of power between the perpetrator and the victim (Brown, Demaray & Jenkins, 2017). For instance, in the case scenario, bullying involved a group of white students as the perpetrators (who are perceived to come from a privileged race) and a black student as the victim (who belongs to a minority race). (Jenkins, Demaray & Tennant (2017) stated that passive and aggressive victims develop a maladaptive display of emotion and emotion regulation. For example, the other black student in the scenario was prompted to vindicate for the helpless victim since the two belonged to the same race. The social work interventions that can be used to change this cycle of events include changing the unwanted emotions by engaging in meaningful activities, changing self-talk and changing the distressing event (Zastrow, Kirst-Ashman & Hessenauer, 2019). Participating in hobbies can be an important distraction that can prevent bullying. Also, changing the negative and irrational emotions associated with anger, hate, and guilt can be used to avoid bullying. Changing the distressing event can be achieved by taking positive action, such as reporting the bullying event to the teacher instead of attacking the perpetrators.
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Critical Analysis
Bullying involves traditional and cyber forms of victimization. Traditional victimization is associated with physical, verbal and relational aggression while cyber victimization occurs in online platforms. Traditional and cyber forms of victimization are associated with social, emotional and academic problems on the victims. Traditional victimization is more prevalent in educational settings than cyberbullying. Bullying has a great effect on the perpetrators, victims and passive of aggressive victims. Failing to address bullying leads to a vicious cycle of events where the perpetrators increasingly torment the victim, the victim develops a low self-concept, and the witnesses are prompted to intervene. As such, social workers need to develop positive strategies to address bullying and counter the negative events that would follow.
References
Brown, C. F., Demaray, M. K., Tennant, J. E. & Jenkins, L. N. (2017). Cyber victimization in high school: Measurement, overlap with face-to-face victimization and associations with social-emotional outcomes. School Psychology Review. 46(3): 288- 303. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2016-0004.V46-3
Jenkins, L. N., Demaray, M. K. & Tennant, J. (2017). Social, emotional and cognitive factors associated with bullying. School Psychology Review. 46(1): 42-64.
Zastrow, C. H., Kirst-Ashman, K. K. & Hessenauer, S. L. (2019). Understanding human behaviour and the social environment, 11 th Ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
