Introduction
Nowadays, there is a wide range of stereotypes concerning every ethnic group forming a community in developed countries. Therefore, people tend to ascribe specific behavioral patterns to people belonging to these groups. Unfortunately, some offensive traits of character and unpleasant habits may be expected from a person who never demonstrates the corresponding line of behavior. Concerning Arab Americans, the image of an evil Muslim in films may serve as an instrument of ethnic discrimination. Such informational war against Arabs is performed to conceal difficulties of cultural integration of ethnic minorities to the United States.
Aladdin representing Arabs as thieves
Unfortunately, most people tend to believe everything they see on the screen without bothering to check information using verified sources. That is why they may see no difference between movie characters and genuine representatives of a particular culture in real life. Among famous films about Arabs there is definitely “Aladdin”, made by Walt Disney Pictures in 2019 (n.d., para. 125 (1)). After watching this film, one may think that people in Arabic countries are prone to stealing. Since the target audience is children, there are likely to be cases of bullying in multinational classes where Arabs maybe even ostracized. However, there is another stereotype under consideration – terrorism in the name of religion. According to Shaheen, not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. Still, due to the general conviction, they are all believed to be adepts of radical streams of Islam, seeking revenge on white civilization and plotting terroristic acts all the time (2003). “True Lies” may serve as a proper illustration of this very problem because it depicts a group of Arabian terrorists trying to collect missiles to bomb the US (n.d., para. 142 (2)). The members of the gang are shown as rude, imbecile, and highly resentful creatures. Admittedly, depicting representatives of Arabic countries this way is very popular in Western countries.
The image of Arabs in the news
In fact, there can be dozens of media sources showing the image of evil migrants from Arabic countries disturbing white citizens of the US. Nevertheless, there is one media scandal that can shed light on the problem and serves as the best illustration of the destructive capacity of rumors and stereotypes. “Arab and Middle Eastern Americans are racialized as anti-American whose allegiance to the United States is impossible because of religion. This is evidenced by the justifications used in President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries” (Zopf, 2018).Such prejudice against refugees cannot is hard to advocate, because certain groups of people according to their nationality and religion were banned. The real reason may be difficulties of adaptation of migrants by the government, which cannot provide enough help for vulnerable groups. Still, it would be a sign of weakness to show problems of domestic policy to the outside world, that is why members of such groups are likely to be blackened for the sake of appearances.
Conclusion
To sum it up, there are many stereotypes that make common people in Western countries mistreat members of different ethnic groups. As far as Arabs are concerned, they are considered to be aggressive and prone to break laws. However, the demonization of Arabian on TV serves only for political purposes, to whitewash those who would care responsibility of disintegration among people.
References
Aladdin (2019) – Full Transcript. (n.d.).
Shaheen, J. G. (2003). Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 588(1), 171–193.
True Lies (1994) – Full Transcript. (n.d.).
Zopf, B. J. (2018). A Different Kind of Brown: Arabs and Middle Easterners as Anti-American Muslims. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 4(2), 178–191.
Manuscript By Hinduja And Patchin Critique
Introduction
The article by Hinduja and Patchin (2013) is the outline of the author’s research into the matter of the impact that cyberbullying has on the youth. This article’s title is “Social influences on cyberbullying behaviors among middle and high school students,” which reflects the scope of the study. This paper will critique the research design and methods Hinduja and Patchin (2013) selected for their research and offer a research strategy for an extension of this study.
Article Critique
The central idea of this research is that the contemporary youth faces a new type of bullying behavior — cyberbullying and that the social influences impact a person’s likelihood of engaging in this behavior. For example, if an individual watched a cyberbullying behavior, will they be motivated to report it to parents or educators, or will this affect their perception of cyberbullying differently.
The theory of socializing agents that guide the choices of adolescents is the basis of this research. As children grow up, they watch and learn from the behaviors of their parents, and this becomes a norm, later allowing for social conformity (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). The hypothesis is that adolescents who know peers engaged in cyberbullying are more likely to engage in this behavior. In contrast, those who know that their parents or educators will punish them for cyberbullying are less likely to cyberbully. The results show that the initial hypotheses are correct, and cyberbullying behaviors are influenced by the social agents surrounding the adolescents. Hence, the conclusions support the hypothesis and show that students cyberbullying behavior is impacted by their peers, educators, and parents.
Strengths and Weaknesses
First and foremost, this study has a large sample size of 4441 individuals from a southern school district in the United States. Moreover, the researchers report having 49% of female respondents and 69% of non-white individuals, which helps gain a better comprehension of cyberbullying’s impact on minorities and vulnerable populations (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013).
A significant weakness of this study is the potential biases in responses because the researchers aim to gain a comprehension of a person’s malicious behavior. More specifically, the questionnaires aimed to determine if these adolescents engaged in bullying and their attitudes towards this behavior, but it is possible that the results were affected by the unwillingness of these individuals to admit their adverse behavior.
Research Design
In this study, the students were asked to respond to a web-based survey with nine questions, reflecting on their experiences within the past nine days. In summary, the researchers conducted their study in 2010 by distributing their questionnaire to a sample of 4441 students from 33 schools in one district from 6th to 12th grade (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). The researchers distributed surveys to schoolchildren on a school day, and the rate of completion was 99% for those students who attended classes on the day of the study. The dependent variable is cyberbullying behavior, and the independent variables are peer involvement and informal sanctions.
The potential reasons why the researchers choose a survey as a method, and therefore qualitative design include the large sample size and the type of results they expected. According to McLeod (2019), qualitative methods allow one to confirm or reject the hypothesis and test the relationship between variables. Hence, qualitative methods are appropriate, since, in this study, the premise was to understand whether the social agents around students affect their cyberbullying behavior, or if simplified, the researchers aimed to understand if the answer to the hypothesis is either “yes” or “no” and not gain a better comprehension of related factors, such as experiences, motivation, perceptions, and others.
Hence, the justification for the selected research method is the scope of the research and the hypothesis that the authors chose — the goal was to either confirm or reject the hypothesis. Another justification for the research design is the sample size since 4441 respondents require a method of data collection and analysis that is tailored to be used on large quantities of data. From this perspective, an online survey is an excellent method because the researchers can export the responses right away into the software, such as SPSS, and analyze it right away (“Questionnaire design and analyzing the data using SPSS,” n.d.). With quantitative data, for example, interviews, the resources and time required to collect and analyze the responses from this population would be immense, making it impossible to complete the study. Thus, the research methods in this study match its purpose, scope, and hypotheses. In contrast, if the researchers choose to use qualitative methods, they would have a lot more information for analysis.
Sampling
The sample of 4441 represents a larger population of middle and high school students, and the researchers concluded that it is sufficiently large and diverse, based on the results of a t-test (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). Based on the description of the selection of the sample, the researchers applied the random sampling technique. According to Khan Academy, under simple random sampling, each representative of a population has an equal chance of being selected for the study (“Sampling methods review,” n.d.). In this case, the researchers defined the general characteristics of the population they were interested in and allowed the school administration to select the participants.
The researchers selected the school districts and asked the educators to choose classes that will be responding to the survey. Hence there was no direct involvement of none of the researchers in the process of selecting the specific individuals for this study. Considering the large sample size, this method is appropriate because it allows for saving time and effort while the results are still representative of the broader population.
Another way of sampling that could be applied for this research is voluntary sampling, where the students would be asked to participate. Khan Academy Article describes this method as the researcher explains the aim of their study and “request for members of a population to join the sample, and people decide whether or not to be in the sample” (“Sampling methods review,” n.d., para. 5). In this case, the researchers would avoid bias or fear of disclosing harmful behaviors that these students might have had when answering the survey questions in a classroom with their peers.
The resources required to implement this study design include school representatives who would hang posters and explain this study to students and the materials needed to create these posters. Hypothetically, this sampling method would require a slightly greater budget but would help remove bias and incorrect responses because students would participate voluntarily. However, no changes to data collection and analysis would be necessary in this case.
The Trustworthiness of the Results
The results appear to be trustworthy since the authors used statistical analysis to test the validity and reliability of these answers. Moreover, since the researchers found that many students reported that they bullied others after seeing their peers do the same, it appears that the students were not afraid to report their adverse behavior. The authors argue that they used SPSS software to process the responses of the students, and based on the outcomes, for example, the number of students who claimed that they witnessed bullying behavior and them reporting that they cyberbullied others, made conclusions (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). Descriptive statistics methods allow summarising data and drawing meaningful insights from it (“Descriptive and inferential statistics,” n.d.; “Descriptive statistics,” n.d.). In addition, they report calculating the variation of responses, which suggests that the results are trustworthy, and the researchers completed the necessary steps to verify them. The researchers also used other methods, such as a 2×3 table to compare the bullying behavior and response of adults. Finally, they created “two ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression models” to detect the patterns in students’ answers (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013, p. 720).
Extension of this Study
To conduct a study for IDA about the differences in drug use among men, women, and adolescents who live in poor areas, examine different patterns of drug use, and the impact of anxiety on drug use methods, one should apply quantitative methods. Similar to Hinduja and Patchin (2013), the use of a survey will allow collecting a large sample of data since IDA wants to draw insights from three distinct groups — men, women, and youth. To construct a questionnaire, the researcher will have to develop a hypothesis, and the first step is to conduct a literature review to find the basis for this hypothesis. For instance, the assessment may suggest that men are more likely to use drugs, while women who use drugs report having more anxiety. Hence, the hypothesis would be that men are more likely than women and adolescents to use drugs and that women report higher levels of stress.
The survey questions that would help find answers include the assessment of demographic characteristics and “yes” or “no” questions, for example: “I have used drugs within the last 14 days” and “In the past two weeks I felt extreme anxiety.” Next, after collecting the responses, the researcher would use SPSS to summarize the answers and see if anxiety is linked to drug use and if there are other detectable patterns. To assess the lack of adequate services in the area, question such as “I perceive access to public services in the area as adequate” can be included.
For the sample selection, the researcher could partner with social services and use random sampling. To account for the generalization issue, the researcher should use a sufficient sample for each of the three groups. For example, in line with the critiques study, collecting 4400 responses from representatives of the three groups would be ideal. However, the exact sample size suitable to make generalized conclusions should be calculated based on the number of individuals who use drugs and live in impoverished areas.
Improving this Research
As was discussed in the section about the weaknesses, there are some areas of improvement within this project. For one, there are concerns about the potential bias of responses due to the sampling strategy and the way in which the researchers conducted their assessment. The students were recruited by allowing their parents to send a form declaring they do not wish their children to participate, which, as opposed to willing full participation, creates some issues with the responses. Hence, by selecting a different sampling strategy, the researchers would be able to get more significant results. In addition, by using mixed-method research, for example, surveys and interviews, they would be able to build on the quantitative data with some insights from the information collected from qualitative methods. In this way, the researchers would be able to gain a better comprehension of how and why parents’ and educators’ attitudes towards cyberbullying impact students’ engagement in this behavior.
These improvements would help achieve better accuracy of results and gain a better comprehension of the results. However, one must admit that this approach has a limit on the number of interviews the researchers can conduct since this method is time and resource-consuming, and analysis of qualitative data is more intricate when compared to statistical analysis. In terms of the budget for these improvements, depending on the number of interviews, the researchers would have to dedicate more resources to complete this study.
Conclusion
Overall, this paper evaluates the article by Hinduja and Patchin (2013) and the research methods these authors used. The researchers aimed to detect patterns of cyberbullying behavior using the social agent’s theory. The research design, methods, and analysis of the data suggest that the study’s conclusion is reliable. An extension of this study aimed at examining patterns of drug use among adolescents can be conducted with the same methods, such as quantitative design and survey.
References
Descriptive and inferential statistics. (n.d.).
Descriptive statistics. (n.d.).
Hinduja, P. & Patchin, J. W. (2013). Social influences on cyberbullying behaviors among middle and high school students. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 42, 711–722.
McLeod, S. (2019). What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research? SimplyPsycology.
Sampling methods review. (n.d.).
Questionnaire design and analyzing the data using SPSS. (n.d.).
Diversity In Families, Cultures, And Schools
Introduction
Diversity creates an environment where people of different backgrounds constantly interact, which results in constant exposure to new ideas. Diversity at the family level comes in different ways, such as having foster children or members of different races. Since family is the primary social unit where members interact close, it significantly influences the child’s development and behavior. From the family level, the child starts to interact with a society where they are exposed to different cultures and ethnic groups. On the other hand, schools are all about learning. They create a conducive environment where peers from different locations, religions, and upbringings acquire knowledge. According to Ainscow (2016), diversity in schools allows learners to grow and become more open-minded thinkers. Families, cultures, and learning institutions that value all their members will offer the necessary support to their members with disabilities to ensure they access quality education.
Understanding The Development and Differences of Each Individual Student
Understanding the development and differences of individual students facilitates a collaborative and close relationship between the teacher and the learner. From the Christian viewpoint, the Bible has high regard for human dignity, and it states that all humans are created in God’s image. The “Statement on the Integration of Faith and Work” urges individuals to regard their career choices as a calling from God to optimize performance (Buszka & Ewest, 2020). By observing these vital Christian teachings, educators gain the values of understanding, wisdom, patience, and empathy when dealing with learners with diverse special needs. Understanding their unique differences and treating them with dignity makes the learners feel appreciated, valued, and comfortable, enabling them to work hard to achieve their full potential.
Collaborating with Other Members of The IEP Team and Parents/Guardians
The diverse settings that a child with disabilities finds themselves in require the attention of all stakeholders to ensure the welfare of the child are taken care of. Students with disabilities have Individual Educational Programs (IEPs) with goals written to help them improve their weaker skills or behaviors. This coordination among players ensures that their teacher of record (TOR) helps them write their IEP yearly, checks on their progress regularly, and sends home progress reports every grading period. Teachers should also keep in touch with the parents to be aware of the ups and downs of the learners educationally and socially. Collaboration ensures that all the necessary resources are availed to facilitate uninterrupted learning of the child with disabilities.
Data and Information to Be Used in the Development of the Student’s IEP
Four essential items can be considered in developing a student’s IEP. The first is the student’s strengths, which can form the framework for building new behaviors and skills. The recent evaluation results can form the second data item to be used by the IEP team. Thirdly, information regarding the child’s functional, developmental, and academic needs is essential in developing this educational program. The IEP team can use the results of district-wide and state assessments and recent educational report cards. The fourth set of information required are special factors of the child, such as English skills, hearing and seeing abilities, and whether their behavior affects other learners or not. Additional information about the student can be obtained depending on the nature of and level of their disability.
Participation in Professional Development and Learning Activities
Attending and participating in professional development activities is an indication that the teacher wants to be up-to-date on the emerging technology tools for the classroom, new curriculum resources, and generally improving the learning experience of students. Participating in learning activities also equips the teacher with new knowledge about student behavior, learning, and home life trends (Brown et al., 2018). For example, teachers in the local district can attend workshops training them on how to use EpiPens to save the lives of students who have severe allergies, such as peanuts. Essentially, teachers who participate in professional development activities are better equipped to handle the dynamic needs of students with disabilities.
References
Ainscow, M. (2016). Collaboration as a strategy for promoting equity in education: possibilities and barriers. Journal of Professional capital and community. Web.
Brown, B. D., Horn, R. S., & King, G. (2018). The effective implementation of professional learning communities. Alabama Journal of Educational Leadership, 5, 53-59.
Buszka, S. G., & Ewest, T. (2020). Benefits of Faith and Work Integration. In Integrating Christian Faith and Work (pp. 85-111). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.