Peer Harassment: A Weapon in the Struggle for Popularity and Normative Hegemony in American Secondary Schools

This paper addresses two of secondary education’s most serious problems—peer abuse of weaker socially unskilled students and a peer culture that in most schools discourages many students from trying to be all that they can be academically. We have documented the two problems by reviewing ethnographies of secondary schools, by interviewing students in eight suburban high schools and by analyzing data from questionnaires completed by nearly 100,000 students at Educational Excellence Alliance schools. Grounded in these observations, we built a simple mathematical model of peer harassment and popularity and of the pressures for conformity that are created by the struggle for popularity and then tested it in data from the Educational Excellence Alliance. Students entering middle school learn its norms by trying to copy the traits and behaviors of students who are respected and by avoiding contact with those who are frequently harassed. Peer norms are enforced by encouraging ‘wannabes,’ aspirants for admission to popular crowds, to harass those who visibly violate them. Consequently, one can infer the norms by noting who gets harassed and who doesn’t. Traits that in EEA data led to higher risks of being bullied and harassed were: being in a special education, being in gifted programs, taking accelerated courses in middle school, tutoring other students, enjoying school assignments, taking a theatre course, not liking rap-hip hop music and liking instead musicals, heavy metal, country, or classical music. The relationship between harassment and academic effort was curvilinear; both the nerds and the slackers were harassed. To some degree these norms are, as Kenneth Arrow suggests, trying to internalize externalities. But why are music preferences such good predictors of harassment? Why are the student tutors victimized? We propose that norms also have a “We’re cool, Honor us” function of legitimating the high status that the leading crowds claim for themselves. As a result the traits and interests that members of leading crowds have in common tend to become normative for everyone. The norms that prevailed were: “Spend your time socializing, do not “study too hard.” Value classmates for their athletic prowess and their attractiveness, not their interest in history or their accomplishments in science.

An Economic Theory of Academic Engagement Norms: The Struggle for Popularity and Normative Hegemony in Secondary Schools

[Excerpt] Why and how do groups create norms? Kenneth Arrow proposed that “norms of social behavior, including ethical and moral codes, ….are reactions of society to compensate for market failure”. This internalize the real externalities explanation for norms is also standard among rational choice theorists in sociology. The situation becomes more complex when we recognize some actions create positive externalities for some individuals and negative externalities for others. Often this results in no norm being established. However, sometimes one segment of a social system has normative hegemony and enforces norms that enhance their power and prestige at the expense of other groups. Norms regarding caste in India, for example, were functional for Brahmins but humiliating for Harijans. Caste and status norms of this type will also be referred to as “Honor us; Not them” norms. Such norms arise when one group is much more powerful (has greater ability to enforce their preferred social norm) than other groups and it imposes its will on others. An additional requirement is that the people who oppose the norm established by the dominant group must be unable or unwilling to leave the social system in which the norm operates

Secondary Education in the United States: What Can Others Learn from Our Mistakes?

Secondary schools are the least successful component of the U.S. education system. Students learn considerably less than in other industrialized nations and dropout rates are significantly higher. This paper provides an explanation for this failure, describes the standards based reforms strategies that many states are implementing to attack these problems, and evaluates the success of these efforts

Reshaping-induced spatiotemporal chaos in driven, damped sine-Gordon systems

Spatiotemporal chaos arising from the competition between sine-Gordon-breather and kink-antikink-pair solitons by reshaping an ac force is demonstrated. After introducing soliton collective coordinates, Melnikov's method is applied to the resulting effective equation of motion to estimate the parameter-space regions of the ac force where homoclinic bifurcations are induced. The analysis reveals that the chaos-order threshold exhibits sensitivity to small changes in the force shape. Computer simulations of the sine-Gordon system show good agreement with these theoretical predictions.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Is Standards-Based Reform Working? … and For Whom?

[Excerpt] Three presidents, the National Governors Association, numerous blue ribbon panels and national teachers unions have called for states to develop content standards for core subjects, examinations assessing student achievement aligned with the content standards and accountability mechanisms for insuring that students achieve these standards. In 1999 eighteen states had minimum competency exam (MCE) graduation requirements, 19 rewarded successful schools, 19 had special assistance programs for failing schools, 11 had the power to close down, take over or reconstitute failing schools

Applying the take-grant protection model

The Take-Grant Protection Model has in the past been used to model multilevel security hierarchies and simple protection systems. The models are extended to include theft of rights and sharing information, and additional security policies are examined. The analysis suggests that in some cases the basic rules of the Take-Grant Protection Model should be augmented to represent the policy properly; when appropriate, such modifications are made and their efforts with respect to the policy and its Take-Grant representation are discussed

The first phase of the internationalisation process: export determinants in firms of the Former Soviet Union

A fundamental part of the transition process is for firms to integrate with the world economy. After having been denied access for many years to world markets under totalitarian rule and the auspices of the CMEA, this will require significant advances in labour productivity, product technology, marketing and managerial know how. Following the collapse of the CMEA and the ensuing decline in domestic demand producers in economies of transition have been forced to export to developed markets, in particular to the EU. Some economies of Central and Eastern Europe (in particular Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic) have successfully managed to reorientate their trade to Western Europe. In contrast Russia and the European CIS have lagged behind. This study attempts to examine those firms in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus which have succeeded to export to the West. By employing linear, logistic and autoregression factors which figure in the firm's decision process of exporting shall be identified. The impact of ownership, firm characteristics and managerial attitudes on a firm's export propensity and intensity shall also be discussed

The effects of dynamic and static stretching methods on speed, agility and power

INTRODUCTION: Warm-ups are integral to coaches’ and athletes’ preparations, yet current research and practice provides conflicting advice on the most effective warm-up procedure for aiding performance. The value of a warm-up is not in question but the role of static stretching within the warm-up is contentious. A number of studies have suggested that static stretching is detrimental to performance (Shrier, 2004), though these have not always employed stretching protocols that reflect those actually used by performers. Many athletes continue to include static stretching as part of their routine, often following a dynamic warm-up. The purpose of the study was to investigate, using realistic protocols, the effects on speed, agility and power of additional static stretching following a dynamic warm-up. METHOD: To date 16 University sports students (11 male, 5 female) have been recruited to the study, which was approved by the University ethics commitee. Following familiarisation with the warm-up methods and sports performance measures, all participants performed two warm-up protocols one week apart. The protocols concentrated on the quadriceps, hamstrings, gastrocnemius, soleus, gluteals, adductors and hip flexors. The Dynamic Warm-up (DW) protocol used a series of specific progresive exercises lasting 10 minutes over a distance of 20m with a jog recovery. The Dynamic Warm-up plus Static Stretching (DWS) protocol used the same DW protocol followed by a 5 minute period during which 7 stretches were held at a point of moderate discomfort for 20 seconds. After an intial rest period of 2 minutes the subjects performed a countermovement vertical jump (CMJ), 20m sprint and Illinios agility test. A one minute rest period was used between performance measures to mimic competitive performance. The order the performance measures were conducted were randomised for each subject; for an individual subject the order was maintained for both protocols. Paired t-tests were used to identify differences between the 3 performance measures over the two warm-up protocols, with a significance level of p ≤ 0.05. RESULTS & DISCUSSION: 20m sprint performance was significantly reduced (p=0.03) by the use of the DWS protocol (3.4 ± 0.32s, mean ± SD) when compared to DW only (3.29 ± 0.29s). The CMJ (DW =0.51 ± 0.09m vs DWS =0.48 ± 0.09m) and Illinois agility (DW =17.31 ±1.0s vs DWS =17.37 ±1.04s) performance showed no significant difference with the addition of static stretching. Previous studies have used static stretching for periods in excess of levels used in conventional warm-ups but the present study indicates that static stretching for as little as 20 seconds after a dynamic warm-up can reduce 20m sprinting performance. Possible mechanisms for this include a decrease in the stiffness of the musculotendinous unit and an acute neural inhibition leading to a decrease in muscle activation levels (Young, 2007). CONCLUSION: The use of static stretching following a dynamic warm-up decreased sprinting performance compared with the dynamic warm-up alone. Practitioners and athletes should use static stretching prior to performance with caution