Annotated Bibliography - David Cook - Team Blue
These are not listed in simply in the order that I found them. A reference list in the normal format
is at the end.
Early Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: Prediction from Clique Isolation, Loneliness, and
Perceived Social Acceptance
This study attempted to determine if one could predict depressive symptoms by the level of peer
acceptance/rejection/clique isolation (Witvliet, Brendgen, van Lier, Koot, & Vitaro, 2010, p.
1045). The results were that clique isolation can predict depression and that the researchers
believe that the link between the two is that clique isolation leads to loneliness, which leads to
depression (p. 1053).
Bullying (entry in Encyclopedia of Education Law)
The article discusses legal definitions of bullying as well as obligations and limitations of
schools in addressing bullying (Ehrensal, 2008). The Columbine incident has raised the profile of
bullying as a problem. Bullying is identified by a combination of three central traits: “imbalance
of power… intent to harm… and threat of further aggression (p. 130)” “Bullies often exhibit a
sense of entitlement, an intolerance toward differences, and an authority to exclude those they
perceive as undeserving” (p. 131). Bullying is not necessarily the act of angry children, but is
rather contempt for those the bully deems to be “weaker, inferior, different or worthless (p. 131)”
or behaving outside social norms. Bullying is most effectively reduced by a school-wide program
of intervention that addresses bullies, victims and bystanders. As for legal obligations, failure to
intervene has been interpreted by the courts as consent by the school (2008).
Education by Peers - A Clique Study
This is an old study done in the early 1970s by Sandra Damico, who wrote her doctoral
dissertation on adolescent cliques. She seems to be out of the loop now, but from what I can tell,
she was widely regarded as the foremost authority on clique formation during the seventies,
prolifically writing journal articles on the subject. However, because the material is so old, most
of it is not readily available.
However, I did find this study, which analyzed the progression of peer relationships among
students at the P.K. Yonge Laboratory School at the University of Florida, Gainesville, College
of Education. This school was apparently set up specifically to create controlled conditions to do
studies like this. She created a set of fascinating diagrams or maps of the relationships among
peers within an 84-student cohort over two years. The maps identify students by race and gender
and whether they were “new” or returning and shows all of the relationships among all of the
students as either being “friendships,” “close friendships” or “loners,” which in this context
really seems to be no discernable relationship. For instance she will show a clique having a
“loner” relationship with another clique while the members within a given clique may have
friendships or close friendships. She also gathered socioeconomic data about the students,
derived from father’s occupation. I did not see anything that denotes hostile relationships though
(Damico, 1974)
Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power: How Norm Violators Gain Power in the Eyes of Others
This study establishes by an experiment, that at least part of what makes a person powerful is
that they violate social norms. It seems that what about that makes them powerful is that they get
away with it, and that their norm breaching goes unchallenged. The experiment consisted of two
groups being shown two videos of a person at a sidewalk café. In one, the man sits at the table
with his legs cross but resting on the ground , flicks his cigarette ash in an ashtray and politely
gives his order to the waitress. This is the control. The other video showed the same man, but his
feet are up on a chair, he flicks his ashes on the ground and speaks to the waitress in imperative
form commands. The respondents were asked to predict how he would react to being given the
wrong order. The overwhelming prediction was the norm violator would respond with a power
trip (Van Kleef, Homan, Finkenauer, Gündemir, & Stamkou, 2011). I am thinking that this
article might help in explaining how pecking orders in cliques and bully/victim relationships
form.
Why We Harass Nerds and Freaks: A Formal Theory of Student Culture and Norms
The study begins with the statement that by a margin of two to one, parents would rather their
children get C’s and be popular than get A’s and not be popular. The study proposes a sort of
theory of everything to explain the phenomenon. “This paper addresses two of secondary
education's most serious problems - peer abuse of weaker, socially unskilled students, and a peer
culture that discourages some students from trying their best academically” (Bishop, et al., 2004,
p. 249)
Bullying Curriculum for School Officials
This is a master’s thesis that consists of an overview of the findings of recent research on
bullying and conveys a curriculum for school administrators, faculty and staff on how to address
it (Yokoyama, 2005). I thought that the summarization of the research he did would be useful for
us. It turns out that through the ‘00s there was a great deal of graduate and doctoral research on
the subject, and it was utterly all the rage in Canada. About eighty percent of what I found
among dissertations and theses on bullying was submitted for degrees from Canadian
institutions; however, this one is from California State University, Long Beach.
Adolescent Self-Concept Formation and Clique Membership
The dissertation explores whether the clique membership diminishes identity development. It
bases the hypothesis from the conclusion drawn from two other concepts. The first is that social
role experimentation encourages identity development; the second is that the power structure of
cliques discourages social role experimentation. The researcher concludes that the hypothesis is
only slightly supported by minor differences in identity development between adolescents in or
not in cliques (Smith, 2000).
Adolescent Peer Culture (entry in Encyclopedia of Education)
The following text is taken verbatim from the overview section of the article.
“The view that peers play a central role in adolescence is widely accepted as fact. In the popular
image of adolescence, however, adolescent peer groups often play a negative role in adolescent
development. Traditionally, the adolescent peer culture of modern society has been perceived as
a primarily negative influence, separate from that of adults and often leading to problem
behaviors. Alcohol abuse, drug use, truancy, and premarital pregnancy are attributed to a
separate youth culture. There are, however, an increasing number of researchers who object to
this negative image of adolescent culture and who argue for a more positive image of adolescent
culture in modern society, its unique and important contributions, and its robust relationship with
and similarities to adult culture. In the following section, these disparate points of view and the
evidence for them are briefly examined” (Bateman, Cornell, & Murrie, 2003, pp. 45-46).
References
Bateman, H. V., Cornell, D. G., & Murrie, D. C. (2003). Adolescent Peer Culture. Encyclopedia
of Education , 1 , 2, 45-56. (J. W. Guthrie, Ed.) New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
Bishop, J. H., Bishop, M., Bishop, M., Gelbwasser, L., Green, S., Peterson, E., et al. (2004).
Why We Harass Nerds and Freaks: A Formal Theory of Student Culture and Norms. J of
School Health , 74 (7), 235-251.
Damico, S. (1974). Education by Peers: A Clique Study. Retrieved June 9, 2011, from ERIC:
http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true
&db=eric&AN=ED104981&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Ehrensal, P. (2008). Bullying. Encyclopedia of Education Law , 1 , 130-132. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications Inc.
Smith, M. K. (2000). Adolescent Self-Concept Formation and Clique Membership. (Dissertation)
Indiana Univeristy of Pennsylvania.
Van Kleef, G. A., Homan, A. C., Finkenauer, C., Gündemir, S., & Stamkou, E. (2011, Jan. 26).
Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power: How Norm Violators Gain Power in the Eyes of
Others. Social Psychological and Personality Science , 1-8.
Witvliet, M., Brendgen, M., van Lier, P. A., Koot, H. M., & Vitaro, F. (2010). Early Adolescent
Depressive Symptoms: Prediction from Clique Isolation, Loneliness, and Perceived
Social Acceptance. J Abnorm Child Psychol , 38, 1045–1056.
Yokoyama, J. J. (2005). Bullying Curriculum for School Officials. (Thesis) California State
University, Long Beach.