Related to Nobody Left to Hate by Elliot Aronson
You are the Principal of Anywhere, USA, High School, and you also have a background in social psychology. Recently you have seen a sharp increase in bullying of adolescents who do not fit in with the popular cliques and you fear that major trouble may be brewing. Like many high schools in the US, your school has a mixture of students from majority and minority ethnic backgrounds, a significant immigrant population (you can decide from where), and students from both very poor and very rich neighborhoods. Recently, an anonymous tip to the principal’s office said that there was a rumor spreading on the internet that some students were planning to seek revenge for being ostracized. You have no idea who the particular students are, because to be honest, they could come from almost any group!
Concerned parents are calling for such things as armed guards at the school, metal detectors, and having students report anyone who seems to behave a little bit “strange”. Using Aronson’s suggestions from Nobody Left to Hate, concepts from at least two chapters other than Aggression, and your own ideas that you develop from reading these materials, write a letter to the school board proposing exactly how you plan to change the school climate for the better and hope to prevent a potentially violent tragedy. Explain what the basic concerns are, address the differences between pump handle and root cause interventions, and argue why your ideas will work the best based on the scientific research supporting them. You may illustrate your ideas with hypothetical examples.
Start your letter with a short summary of the problem, and then move on to discussing your strategies for intervention along with the research supporting your ideas (be sure to cite your sources). Somewhere along the way, address the calls for interventions that parents have voiced as well. Also include a conclusion paragraph. Be sure to try to make your letter as persuasive as you can (you can use some of the persuasion tactics that we have studied – remember to consider who your audience is along with what their concerns might be so that you can address them).