Posted by Jay Livingston
Last week, seventeen Montclair students were officially inducted into AKD, the sociology honor society. We were glad to have so many, especially since we raised the GPA bar this year.
(Click on the picture for a larger view.)
Left to right.- Lisa Kaiser
- Desiree Velez
- Keri Anne Hart
- Tom Rorke
- Jackie Cano
- Rachel Druker
- Luis Bernal
- Kristine Nemec
- Jamie Sommer
- Liz Sondej
- Joseph Della Fave
- Rachel Lyn Matthews
- Armita Haghshenas
- Victoria Sirianni
Not in the picture:
- Jovo Bjelcevic
- Kelly Orosz
- Sean Wilkinson
We even managed to get students and faculty together for a photo op.
Front row: Yong Wang, Chris Donoghue, Sangeeta Parashar, Yasemin Besen-Cassino, Faye Allard, George Martin, Arnie Korotkin
Second row: (faculty/staff only): Janet Ruane, Jay Livingston, Susan O'Neil, Bob Podhurst
Our speaker was Paul Hirschfield of Rutgers who has been looking at school bullying, focusing the cases that ended in suicide (“bullicide”). He pointed out the obvious shortcomings of purely psychological explanations. Whatever the common traits of bullies or of victims, these don’t explain why bullying increases in prevalence or intensity in some schools and not others. He had a similar criticism of the explanation that focuses on culture. “Lazy sociology,” was his term for it. Instead, he looks at social structure, particularly status hierarchies. Among kids, hierarchies can promote and sustain bullying. Among teachers, those at the top of the status hierarchy – the more senior teachers – may take an old-school non-interventionist, non-alarmist view. Younger teachers who might want to intervene “risk making powerful enemies” (high-status students). In his review of 50 bullicide cases, Paul noticed that teachers were especially less likely to challenge anti-homosexual bullying.
We had a pretty good turnout.
From a former AKD speaker to the this year's honorees, my congratulations to all, students and family alike!
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