Incident Description

This assignment follows several different incidents all in which the victim is Jeremy Nelson:

• Playground Incident 1: Jeremy's backpack was nuggeted (the contents were removed, the backpack turned inside out, and the contents returned to the inside-out backpack) by an unknown person. The teacher orders Jeremy to return to class without returning his backpack to the right way.
• Playground Incident 3: Jeremy is in the playground playing on his PSP. He is approached by Mickahale who calls him a "fag". Michahale then takes the PSP off Jeremy and throws it in the bin. Despite this, when confronted with the teacher, Jeremy defends Michahale by telling the teacher that his PSP simply fell in the bin.
• Art Lesson Year 8: During class Jeremy is pushed in the back by Michahale. Nick then takes Jeremy's notebook off him and writes "suck up" on the notebook. Jeremy does not appear to retaliate in any way, and the teacher does not notice the incident.
• Admin In/Out Tray: A letter in the Admin In/Out Tray  indicates that the day before Michahale beat up Jeremy after school. According to the letter Michahale claims that the attack was provoked by something Jeremy said. The letter indicates that the teachers are considering involving the police.

Major Differences Contributing to these Incidents

Socioeconomic Status (S.E.S)

There are numerous different factors that together indicate that Jeremy is likely of lower socioeconomic status (S.E.S):

• There are indications that Jeremy often does not have breakfast, as teachers observe that he is often trying to get food of other students in the canteen.
• Jeremy also rarely has clothes for P.E. and his normal uniform appears as if Jeremy slept in it.
• Jeremy's parents are separated, with Jeremy being cared for by his father, and another woman in the home who reportedly regularly changes.
• Jeremy's father is also potentially verbally abusive to his children.

There are more clear indications that Mickahale is of low S.E.S.:

• His family are of Croatian origin, and Croatian is the primary language spoken at home.
• The parents appear to regularly move, chasing irregular work such as working the cabbage harvest.
• His parents identify that they are unable to pay for lessons that would help Mickahale with his low levels of English.

Ethnic Differences

We have no indication that Jeremy Nelson is of any ethnicity other than the dominant English-Australian ethnic group. By contrast, we have indications that both of the other contributing students, Michahale and Nick, are of minority ethnic groups.

• As mentioned before, Michahale's family is of Croatian origin and primarily speak Croatian at home. His English is of a low standard and the English of his parents in the interview is also of low standard.

• Nicholas' last name, Stephanopolous, gives indication that he is of Greek origin. Discussion in the staff room indicate that he has views that reinforce traditional gender roles and that he has strong opinions towards the left wing of politics. These opinions are probably developed at home. These may or may not be related to his ethnic background, but none-the-less indicate a value difference that can also cause social differences.

Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic Status (S.E.S.) is a complex concept, although surprisingly most people have an intuitive measure of how to rate a person's S.E.S.. It reflects a combination of many aspects of a person, including income, power, education, occupation, etc. As mentioned it is a highly complex value (Gollnick & Chinn, 1994), as some people can be quite low in some of the above measures and yet still be considered of high S.E.S.

S.E.S. is one of the strongest indicators of academic achievement among students (Berliner, 2006. Eamon, 2002. Newcomb, et. al., 2002). Students of low S.E.S. generally not only have low school achievement, but also worse health (Duncan& Brooks‐Gunn, 2000), self-esteem, and lower expectations (Elrich, 1994). Although it is not clear precisely why it is the case, there are many possible reasons why students with low S.E.S. perform poorly at school. Some of them are:

• Students of low S.E.S. usually have more things that they are worrying about outside of school. By considering the Information Processing Model, this means that they have less capacity left over in their working memory, decreasing their ability to learn.
• Students of low S.E.S. may also develop a "resistance culture" whereby they feel that they are "selling out" if they are seen to be emulating students of higher S.E.S. by doing well at school. In this case some students may intentionally avoid activities that may lead them to succeed.

As mentioned before, students of low S.E.S. also generally have low self-esteem. This means that bullying-type behavior is more common, as this type of behavior is often in an attempt to increase someone's self-concept through reducing another person in their eyes.

Ethnic and Cultural Differences

An ethnic group is a group of people who have a common identity based on historical, social, or cultural reasons. Everyone has some ethnicity, although often people who belong to the dominant ethic group of a nation don't consider themselves to belong to an ethnic group (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2010).

Different ethnicity between different students can cause conflict for numerous reasons, and some of these may be contributing to the conflict between Jeremy and Michahale and Nick:

• Communication Problems: Even thought different ethnic groups may speak the same language, differences in views on etiquette and appropriate language can cause conflict (Lo Bianco & Crozet, 2003). Also, come areas that may be considered appropriate for discussion in one culture may not be appropriate in another.
• Value Differences: Different ethnic groups may also have different values that can lead to conflict (Lo Bianco & Crozet, 2003). As identified before, Nick's views on gender roles is one such value difference that may be culturally based.

It should also be considered that Michahale attributes his after-school fight with Jeremy to a comment Jeremy said that Michahale considered offensive. It is possible that this comment was ethnically orientated, which can easily escalate into physical violence.

References

• Berliner, D. (2006). Our impoverished view of educational reform. The Teachers College Record, 108(6), 949-995.
• Duncan, G. J., & Brooks‐Gunn, J. (2000). Family poverty, welfare reform, and child development. Child development, 71(1), 188-196.
• Eamon, M. K. (2002). Poverty, parenting, peer, and neighborhood influences on young adolescent antisocial behavior. Journal of Social Service Research,28(1), 1-23.
• Elrich, M. (1994). The Stereotype Within. Educational Leadership, 51(8), 12-15.
• Gollnick, D. A. & Chinn, P.C. (1994). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society (4th ed.). New York: Merrill.
• Lo Bianco, J. & Crozet, C. (2003). Teaching invisible culture: classroom practice and theory. Melbourne: Language Australia Publications.
• Newcomb, M. D., Abbott, R. D., Catalano, R. F., Hawkins, J. D., Battin-Pearson, S., & Hill, K. (2002). Mediational and deviance theories of late high school failure: Process roles of structural strains, academic competence, and general versus specific problem behavior. Journal of Counseling Psychology,49(2), 172.
• Woolfolk, A., & Margetts, K. (2010). Educational psychology (3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson.