Happy first day of Black History month, everyone! Hope
everyone’s first week back went smoothly after jumping back into school mode.
So during this week I thought about all the different
possibilities I have for this project. I have narrowed down my theme for
research to childhood bullying. Now I just had to think about my research
question and what I wanted to get out of this experience in helping the SUNY
Fredonia community.
Through my psychology internship, I am placed at the local
Boys and Girls Club in Dunkirk, NY in the mentoring program that is funded and
ran by Chautauqua Striders a local nonprofit organization. It’s my
responsibility to help out my supervisor in overseeing the mentors and mentees
and create projects or activities for the mentees to do with their mentors. My
internship gives me a great starting off point to conduct research because I am
able to find subjects through my mentoring program because the children there
have ages ranging kindergarten-6th grade. It would also be great for
the children in the program to learn more about bullying and it’s effects on
themselves and their peers.
So I’m in a good position for this project to work out, but
again what should my research question be? Through my past research papers I
always end up changing my research question as I go through my methods and
measures. But I’m thinking I want to focus on bullying prevention and giving
the kids tips and tricks on how to deal with bullies. It would also be a good
idea to teach the kids on how to cope and help friends who are bullies. Lately
in the club my mentee has developed a new friendship with another girl who goes
to the club and is a bully herself. Since they have become friends I’ve noticed
my mentee has changed her behavior and attitude towards her peers and I believe
it’s because she is following the deviant behaviors of her new friend. I know
bullies usually have other friends who follow them around and contribute to
bully behaviors even though they don’t necessarily want to. I think it’s important
to teach children communication skills to know when to tell a bully to stop
their behaviors even when it’s a friend. I want to boost the children’s
confidence in bully intervention situations. So after considering that, I think
my working title for the project would be: “Strategies and Actions for Youth to
Take in the Face of a Bully.” Like I said I may adjust it to sound more
professional or to hone in on what exact measures I will be taking.
I also emailed Dr. McEntarfer about getting together to see
if she would be interested in becoming my mentor for the project and discussing
my ideas. I looked at her website and she has done lots of work in youth issues
and would be able to help my writing process tremendously. Heather's Website
Now, onto to finding some sources for the project. I plan on
looking up previous studies conducted on this topic area. I also want to seek
out other websites that help this cause. Here are some links that I found about
bullying.
See you all on Tuesday!
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