SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES

Sociological Issues

Sociological Issues

Educators have a significant function in our children's futures. Although, within the school system, there are numerous sociological matters that our children face every day. Sociological matters which may exactly and inexactly affect them pertain from moral matters, aggression, injustice and discrimination to name a couple of. This paper will gaze at several of these matters, their effects on our young kids, and the implication to advance them.

School bullies has been an age old problem in all grade levels. Children report that they are bullied at least once a week (Sadker & Zittleman, 2007, pg. 102). According to Dr. Olweus, Bullying behavior is evident even in preschool. Intervention strategies need to be implemented at an early age as possible (Olweus, 2009, pg. 2). There are many types of bullying; for example, Physical bullying includes hitting, punching, kicking and other types of physical harm, as well as destruction of a child's property. Verbal bullying includes teasing, name-calling, taunting and racial slurs, as well as spreading gossip or malicious rumors. Cyber bullying includes harassing e-mails or instant messages, as well as intimidating or threatening Web-sites or blogs (Olweus, 2009, pg2). A growing number of schools have had bullying escalate to a much more violent outcome research done by the secret service and the US Department of Education into 37 school shootings including columbine, found out that two-thirds of student shooters felt bullied, harassed, threatened or injured by other students (Olweus, 2009, pg. 2). Bullying has been linked to depression, suicide, and eating disorders the creation of anti bullying programs have begun to help reduce instances of bullying (Sadker & Zittleman, 2007, pg. 2) but, must be followed through in order to eliminate the threat all together.

Discrimination in school is also an issue, discrimination not only against race, but sexual and social as well. After the segregation and desegregation of schools, there is still tension today among mixed races within many of the schools, now called Second-generation segregation. Mickelson examines the negative effects of both first-generation segregation, which is the physical segregation of schools by racial composition, and second-generation segregation, in which students are segregated by race as a consequence of academic tracking. The new study clearly demonstrates that both types of segregation impair both Black and White students' academic achievement, but that Blacks suffer the greatest injury (Cox, 2001, pg. 1). With second-generation segregation, white students pursue certain extra curricular activities and territories, while the African American students have there own (Sadker & Zittleman, 2007, pg. 173). School activities, should encourage all races to become involved, classrooms should encourage races to be grouped together creating friendships between students of opposite races.

Sexual or gender discrimination is also prevalent within schools. A study done in 1994 found that in the fourth through sixth grades girls used the computer more than boys with a ratio of 1:4 (Sakamoto, 1994, pg. 24). Children today feel that typing, office work and nursing are girl's jobs, and boys jobs are mechanics, doctors and ...