STICKS AND STONES: THE SOCIOCULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL VIOLENCE By V. RACHEL WAYNE A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2018 © 2018 V. Rachel Wayne To my parents, who endlessly support me ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my parents, who supported my academic and professional pursuits and instilled a curiosity and love of learning in me. I thank my partner Dan, who always greets me with love and support. I thank all my friends and colleagues who encouraged me to stick with it. I thank my excellent professors and mentors at the University of Florida. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ 8 LIST OF TERMS ............................................................................................................... 10 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 13 2 OVERVIEW OF TOPIC .............................................................................................. 16 A Brief History of Interpersonal Social Violence in the U.S. ...................................... 16 Bullying as a Social Problem ............................................................................... 16 “Bullycide”: The Apparent Rise in Teen Suicides ................................................ 17 “The Culture of Mean” .......................................................................................... 19 “That’s So Gay”: Homophobic Bullying ............................................................... 20 Zero Tolerance ..................................................................................................... 21 Around the World: Bullying .................................................................................. 22 Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Abuse as Social Problems .............................. 22 “Just How Things Are”: Sexual Harassment ....................................................... 22 “She Said No, but She Meant Yes”: Sexual Assault, Battery, and Rape ........... 24 Me Too But Not Me .............................................................................................. 25 Hashtag Movements and Cyber Harassment ..................................................... 26 “Why Didn’t She Leave?”: Intimate Partner Abuse ............................................. 27 Around the World: Intimate Partner Abuse and Domestic Violence ................... 29 The Prosecution of Abusers ....................................................................................... 31 Anti-Bullying Law .................................................................................................. 31 Sexual Harassment and Assault Law .................................................................. 34 Around the World: Criminalization ....................................................................... 34 American(?) Psycho.................................................................................................... 36 Cluster B ............................................................................................................... 36 Empathy................................................................................................................ 37 3 LITERATURE REVIEW: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF BAD BEHAVIOR .................. 41 Bullying ................................................................................................................. 41 Sexual Violence .................................................................................................... 44 The Effects of Media ............................................................................................ 53 4 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES .............................................................................. 58 5 Violence as Instrumental ............................................................................................ 58 “School’s Out”: Overview of Bullying as Adaptive Aggression .................................. 60 Violence in the Social Milieu ................................................................................ 60 Abnormality and Adaptation ................................................................................. 64 The Institutional Environment .............................................................................. 66 Children ................................................................................................................ 72 That’s So Wrong: Overview of Bullying and Violence in Social Discourse ........ 77 Violence as Symbolic ........................................................................................... 77 Violence as Criminal ............................................................................................ 81 Morality and Rights .............................................................................................. 84 Whose Line Is It Anyway? .................................................................................... 85 Mean Girls (and Boys, and Kids in General): Children’s Social Roles ............... 85 Men Are From Mars ............................................................................................. 87 “Boys Will Be Boys”: Gender Perspectives on Interpersonal Social Violence ... 89 The 10 O’Clock News: The Public.............................................................................. 92 5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODS ............................................................. 97 Legal and Discourse Artifacts ..................................................................................... 97 First Stage ................................................................................................................... 99 Public’s Perception of Bullying ............................................................................. 99 Methods of Semantic Analysis of News Media ................................................... 99 Second Stage............................................................................................................101 The Legal Aspects of Bullying ...........................................................................101 Methods of Semantic Analysis of Legal Artifacts ..............................................102 Third Stage ................................................................................................................103 Social Context and Sociopsychology ................................................................103 Socioecology ......................................................................................................104 Methods of Ethnographic and Socioecological Study .......................................105 Media Effects on Perception of Interpersonal Social Violence ................................107 Media and Violence ............................................................................................107 Methods of Media Effects Study ........................................................................108 6 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................111 First Stage .................................................................................................................111 News Content Analysis Findings .......................................................................111 Discussion of First Stage Findings ....................................................................112 Second Stage............................................................................................................113 Legal Content Analysis Findings .......................................................................113 Discussion of Second Stage Findings ...............................................................116 Third Stage ................................................................................................................118 Educator Interviews ............................................................................................118 Discussion of Third Stage Findings ...................................................................125 Fourth Stage .............................................................................................................126 Fifth Stage .................................................................................................................130 6 7 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................131 APPENDIX A GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS ................................................................................134 B SEMANTIC ANALYSIS CUE WORDS .....................................................................136 C DIGITAL INTERVIEW SCHEDULE ..........................................................................137 D SURVEY SCHEDULE ..............................................................................................138 E VIDEO SCHEDULE ..................................................................................................146