Stereotypes And Prejudice-Based Bullying

Stereotypes themselves are not negative. They can help us by “reducing the complexity of incoming information, facilitating rapid identification of stimuli, and predicting and guiding behavior” (Matusitz 90). In other words, stereotypes help our brains simplify the information we take in daily and speed up the decision making process, allowing us to act quickly if needed—a sort of shortcut our brains take by generalizing and categorizing information. Stereotypes become negative when people start to generalize a whole group as having one quality and fail to look at the differences between the individuals in that group (e.g. There were a few black men on news arrested for various crimes, so all black men will be criminals, regardless of their …show more content…
Prejudice against others “is based on stereotypes and can impede effective and efficient intergroup communication” (Matusitz 91). It creates misunderstandings between people and can cause people with a prejudicial attitude to act unfairly toward others. Prejudice-based bullying—where a person bullies someone because of a prejudice they have against their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc.—occurs frequently in schools, and most other types of bullying can be included in this category. Prejudice-based bullying can range from name-calling, to isolation and exclusion of the victims, to even “physical violence” and “hate crimes” (Gordon). Students can also be bullied for not fitting into a stereotype. If a boy doesn’t act “strong” or “manly,” as males are stereotypically thought of, he might be called gay by his peers and be harassed because of it (Gordon). Bullying can have many effects on the victim of the situation, including depression and isolation, which can lead to self-harm and suicide. They may not want to go to school because they are afraid of being bullied. According to Adrienne Dessel from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Latino students have a dropout rate four times as large as white students, and twice as large as African-Americans, which can be linked to prejudicial bullying (410). Whether they affect social interactions or academic achievement, stereotypes and …show more content…
Each school has developed their own policies on how to eliminate instances of racism and prejudice—teacher and parent interventions, introducing anti-bullying programs, pep assemblies—but many times, bullying and prejudice occur anyway. So, what can help solve this problem? One way is to increase education about the stereotyped groups. According to psychologist Walter Stephan, “One of the root causes of prejudice is ignorance” (59). To dispel ignorance of a subject, a person must gain knowledge about that subject. So logically, gaining knowledge about a group will reduce the amount of prejudice that a person holds against that group. But this information must be the right amount and right type of information. A professor from the University of Central Florida explains this idea using a “knowledge spectrum.” The highest end of this spectrum, where a person possesses a large amount of knowledge about another group’s culture, should ideally strengthen understanding and reduce prejudice and stereotyping. The lowest end of the spectrum, where a person possesses a minimal amount of knowledge about other groups, is called ignorance and one of the main causes of stereotyping and prejudice. The middle of the spectrum, then, is when a person contains some knowledge about a group. Most would agree that some knowledge is better than ignorance,