Bullying: Case Study

Introduction

The agents of socialization are such as the family, peers, media and the school and in the case of Antonio, the fact that he has realized he is a bully and that he is not behaving accordingly has been influenced by the school and his friends. To begin with, Antonio has looked himself in the mirror and through the looking glass self, he has viewed how other people view him, how he sees himself and how he would like himself to change to a better person. He has realized that he bullies people and makes them feel bad while the rest do not behave like him and he is angered and saddened by that realization.

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The agents of socialization that have influenced this are his friends or peers who have probably shunned him because of his behavior and have thus prompted him to look and assess his behavior (Kenny, 2007). The other agent of socialization that may have influenced Antonio's looking glass self is his family who has kept of questioning his behavior because they are always called to the school to deliberate on his behavior, and it may have dawned on him that he is wasting away and putting his parents in agony. The looking-glass self is usually influenced according to researchers by the socialization agents in the community.

Answerability is the being true to the expectations of a society to an individual. In the case of Antonio and other children in his class, there is the society's expectation that they should be well behaved and avoid bullying others because it affects their esteem (Kenny, 2007). In, that sense, the society holds Antonio to answerability. The way that Antonio is looking at the looking glass self is as a result of him wanting to be answerable to the society and as such recognizes his mistakes and wants to rectify them by stopping his bullying actions altogether. The answerability that the society expects of him has led to him loathing himself, and he has had the desire to be like the other good and well-behaved children in his class. Therefore in regards to Antonio's desire to change, it shows that people expecting answerability of an individual is a good thing because it motivates one to keep behaving accordingly.

Game Plan

An activity that can be completed in class is where the teacher would have the students using shoe templates and tracing them out o a piece of paper or a chart. These steps for each student would then be placed on a wall outside the class (KPBS, 2015). The teacher would then explain that each step one takes would be a single step towards fighting bullying and eliminating it. Before the activity, the teacher should have a pre-discussion where the teacher would talk about bullying and the effects they have on the tormenter and the one being bullied. The discussion should revolve around how they would advocate for a world free of bullying.

The discussion would also involve the whole class participating in giving suggestions of what the society, parents, teachers, and politicians as well are doing to eliminate bullying. The ideas they give should be written down so that they help them while making their steps which symbolize the steps they discussed prior on how to end bullying (KPBS, 2015). This is an activity which could eventually be done by all classes throughout the school and be put continuously on the walls of all the classes, and it would be a reminder to the students as they walk on the halls that they should do everything to discourage bullying.

The way which Antonio's classmates would help him stop bullying is that the teacher would have rewards for each student who used a kind word or was kind in any way to their classmates. This way the classmates would encourage Antonio to be kinder so that he has the most rewards. He could be encouraged to share his pencil and crayons so that he has helped someone and this way he could realize that doing good is rewarded as compared to being a bully where everyone is angry at you all the time (KPBS, 2015).

I would advise my students to help Antonio further by trying to play with him and sit with him during breaks instead of showing him the cold shoulder and letting him be alone. This way he will feel welcome to the good side of advocating for the stopping of bullying.

One strategy that I would encourage Antonio to adopt is that one of ensuring that he has a checklist of things he should do and those that he should not. I would have him write the checklist and then ask him to give it to me to stay with it, and he would have to check in with me every evening to see which ones he did not abide by. This way I would advise him on a daily basis on how to improve his kindness, and he would give me his thoughts of how he thinks he is progressing.

With this checklist, I would encourage him to talk to others that he thinks are bullies as well and have that in his checklist and with everyone that he convinces to stop bullying, I would give him a reward of a sticker or a storybook. After he follows this for several weeks and he perfects on his checklist, I would consider making him a class secretary and this would prevent him from going back to his ways.

I would suggest to Antonio's parents that they encourage him to invite his friends over for play dates and sleepovers as well so that he would not forget he is supposed to treat his friends and everyone else around him with respect. When the parents notice that he has digressed from his behaviors, they should ground him or deny him something he regularly has, and this would discourage him form digressing. This step to have his parents involved will ensure that there is a smooth continuity in school and at home to prevent him from forgetting that he is trying to change to become a good person. When he relates to his friends in a good way his parents should reward him as well

Conclusion

Bullying has become and has been commonplace for the longest time all around the world. The fact that Antonio has discovered through the looking glass self-concept that he is not answerable to society is a great way to show other bullies that they can also take the initiative to stop bullying. The teachers and the people around him have designed a game plan for him to help him to stop bullying his classmates.

References

Kenny, R.W. (2007). The good, the bad, and the social: On living as an answerable agent. Sociological Theory, 25(3), 268-291. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00308.x

KPBS. (2015, August 11). Help stop bullying with these resources from the bully project. Independent Lens. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/bully_resources-html/