Background

Discuss about the Cultural Intelligence and Capability for Anti-Bullying Safe Space.

Culture influences a person’s behaviour and attitude towards a given situation. People have different cultures and thus the need for safe spaces. People have to respect and not uphold other people’s culture to co-exist peacefully in the society. People create their safe spaces to guard themselves against issues such as bullying, discrimination, and even racial abuses. Culture plays an integral role in ensuring that everyone in the society is afforded equal rights and justice.

The purpose of this report is to focus on anti-bullying safe space. Many teenagers approximately one in four undergoes bullying at some point in their lives (Žegarac, 2007) The report uses an anti-bullying safe space youth video to depict how bullying and creation of safe spaces can occur. The video has two scenes of unsafe spaces that depict gay bullying and cyberbullying.

The report aims at providing an analysis of an unsafe bullying space and develop recommendations on the appropriate ways to improve safety in spaces.

The anti-bullying safe space youth video was made in New York in the year 2013. The video depicts how the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community were bullied in addition to a girl being cyber bullied. The story line in the video begins with an LGBT couple walking down the streets while holding hands together. The couple was later confronted by a group of three men who lashed out on the couple for being gay and showing it on the streets. Another group consisting of a man, a teenager and a woman come to the rescue of the couple and chase the bullies away. The first scene ends with the couple, and the rescuers are walking swiftly away together. The second scene involves a girl who uploads her pictures on Facebook and her colleague’s comment on the photo using bullying messages. One of her colleagues though is not proud of the comments and deletes the comment before it is posted to protect the girl from bullying.

Holley and Steiner (2005) state that the ability to create a safe space is determined by Cultural self-awareness. Culturally self-aware individuals can cope with any issue without obstructing the rights of others. Self-aware people have developed the ability to understand and synthesize critical issues and react appropriately in a given situation. Safe spaces refer to places where people can relax and express themselves fully without the fear of being made to feel inferior, unwelcome or unsafe on account of their life choices, cultural background, gender identity amongst many other factors (Cross et al., 2015). A person should not be made to feel uncomfortable due to being a little bit different in actions or physical appearance. Cultural intelligence refers to the ability to relate, work and perform effectively in culturally diverse settings (Dyne, 2012). The intelligence develops from previous individual interactions with varying cultures. A person thus gains the needed knowledge to operate in those social set ups. Cultural self-awareness refers to the ability to recognize one’s own cultural impact on values, beliefs, and judgments. It also includes the influences that a person derives from the professional’s job culture. Cultural self-awareness starts by being aware of cultural differences and their effect on behaviour (Swearer &Hymel, 2015, p. 350).

Scope

Bullying is a complex issue that is influenced by many factors that are socio-ecological related (Harcourt, Green & Bowden, 2015). The social-ecological model helps study bullying through the four levels of the model namely individual, relationship, community and society. The theory helps in expanding the knowledge the complex phenomenon that is bullying. Cultural intelligence provides a person with the skills and knowledge to tune one’s behaviour to correspond with the cultural requirements of a situation or at work. Bullying takes place everywhere be it in schools or at workplaces, and a person has to be culturally intelligent to achieve the set goals (Ofe et al., 2016). Cultural self-awareness help shapes the attitude and perception of a person. The behaviour of a culturally self-aware individual does not tolerate bullying and works towards creating a safe space. When you combine cultural intelligence and cultural self-awareness the individual will have well developed social skills to create often a safe space no matter the situation.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDbDQP4xQ6s)

The first scene of the video clip is situated on the streets in New York. The couple of two young men are walking holding their hands together while their fingers are firmly intertwined showing signs of a romantic relationship. The three bullies are dressed in baggy clothes and are seen to use signs and gestures that depict an abusive nature (Swarthout, 2003). The three bullies are big in body stature, and the couple was in a position to cause harm to them. The bullies displayed a lack of cultural intelligence when they followed the couple and started to harass and bully them by shoving them of the pathway exhibiting signs of exclusion (Flanja, 2009). The group that rescues the couple show a lot of cultural intelligence as they take the couple away from the scene and seem baffled by the actions of the bullies. Space is unsafe for the couple.

The second scene in the video involves four ladies. One is seated in a separate cyber from the other three. The girl posts her picture on Facebook with no ill intentions and maybe unaware of cyber bullying. The other three girls seated in a different cyber view the picture and try to comment. The body language of one of the girls when they first saw the picture showed that she had zero respect for her and they had secluded her. The girl lacked cultural intelligence and self-awareness (Quappe and Cantatore, 2005). The girl imitated the picture and laughed at her with the epitome of their bullying being writing nasty comments. The social media is a very unsafe space.

Aim

In the first scene of the video clip, the three bullies displayed a lack of cultural intelligence when they first saw the couple holding hands using gestures and signs. The signs of disgust shown by the bullies made the couple frightened, and they scampered away trying to avoid the trio. Poorly developed self-awareness led the trio to act violently towards the couple. The bullies lacked the ability to adjust to another culture and to them they did not need to respect the values and beliefs of the couple. A closer look at the social-ecological model level one of the individual, the video shows that the bullies maybe had personal history factors and biological factors that made them perpetrators of violence (Bruhn, 2005). The relationship level reveals that the bullies have never been close or have close relatives that are LGBT. The total lack of cultural intelligence promoted their aggressive nature towards the couple. It is thus easy to conclude that the community the bullies are from has not embraced such culture (Vahedi, Fathi & Golparvar, 2016). The behaviour of an individual is largely influenced by culture. The behaviour displayed by the bullies made the couple feel unsafe.

The second scene in the film shows how cyber bullying easily takes place. This type of bullying especially does not require the perpetrator to be in proximity to the victim. The girl (bully) who first sees the picture on the social site has poorly developed cultural intelligence levels. The initial reaction and the gestures she portray show how she feels towards the victim and that she feels the victim is not of her calibre. The girl’s behaviour is promoted by the closest circle-peers she has who seem to be in support of her behaviour and mockery (swearer & Hymel, 2015). The social-ecological theory shows that the relationships a person has influence their roles in bullying. The third level of the Social-ecological model shows that it is likely the girl emanates from a community which has a history of violence thus why she is a bully. Out of the three girls, one shows that she has a highly developed cultural intelligence level. She is not impressed by the reactions of the bully and sits quiet and tries to concentrate on her issues. But when she reads the comment that the girl is about to post the picture she takes action into her hands and deletes the comment before it is posted. The girl is trying to make the social site a safe place.

Summary of Video Clip

Recommendations for the first scene in the video should involve community education and awareness creation. The three bullies seem to hold hate for the LGBT. Extensive education and awareness creation programs will help to transform the community as a whole to make the community a safe place (Taipale, 2012). It is critical to increasing the level of societal connectedness so that people can interact with varying culture and get educated on the need to respect the values and beliefs of other cultures (Spencer, 2008). It is important that communities form policies and laws to curb bullying. The perpetrators of bullying should be reprimanded for their actions, and they should be forced to attend anti-bullying initiatives for a given period till their actions change for the better. Most victims of bullying end up as perpetrators of the vice. It is thus crucial to educate and rehabilitate all the victims to prevent the spread of bullying. The communities can establish centres to cater for these victims where they can hold sessions and talk about it to help them heal (Cornell & Bradshaw, 2015). It is hard to control cyber bullying, though schools have the required machinery to bring this vice to a stop.  The school-based program will help transform the teenagers and young adults for the better and will reduce bullying of any form.

Conclusion

A little research on bullying reveals some shocking data concerning the vice. In the world today, every seven minutes a child is bullied, and the rate of intervention is very low (Chadaga, Villines & Krikorian, 2016). The video clip used shows how bullying is perpetrated in the streets and cyber bullying. What is worth noting is that most of the perpetrators know the victims especially in cyber bullying. The video clip showed two scenes of unsafe spaces. The victims in the clip are denied a safe space to express themselves freely without interference from other parties. The clip shows that there is still room for improvement such as the ill treatment towards the LGBT. The LGBT have to be respected and offered the same opportunities as non-LGBT because they are also human beings.

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