Name Calling Research Articles

NRJ Book: Covering McCarthysm: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950–1954

Covering McCarthysm: How the Christian Science Monitor handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950-1954 by Lawrence N. Strout (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999, $55, 171 pp.) reviewed by Kim E. Karloff Those inside and outside the field of journalism have called it one of the most controversial issues of the 1950s: McCarthyism. In his book, Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950-1954, Lawrence Strout focuses on how one influential newspaper of the era reported on and, rather persistently at times, criticized the actions of the Republican junior senator from Wisconsin. The book spans from McCarthy's Lincoln Day speech in February 1950 to his censure by the U.S. Senate in December 1954. While student readers may bemoan the lack of a more scintillating examination of the motion picture industry and the attacks by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee on those in Hollywood who even broached a Communist thought in the late 1940s, Strout makes it clear from the get-go that this text's focus is on how one newspaper served as a balanced voice of moderation in an era of politically charged, and often politically driven, news coverage. There are no Hollywoodesque depictions here. The book is organized by year beginning with an overview of the Monitor's pre-McCarthy Cold War coverage and the February 9, 1950, speech to the Ohio County Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which McCarthy claimed that there were Communists working in the State Department. And it is here in the first chapter that one first finds the book's strength. The book's strength lies in the comparisons of coverage between the Monitor and other leading newspapers of the time. For example, Strout notes that the Chicago Tribune was one of the few large newspapers in the country to even carry details of the now famous 1950 Lincoln day speech. He notes that the Christian Science Monitor didn't cover the story until two days later (via the Associated Press) and the New York Times failed to mention the McCarthy speech until February 12 (in a United Press-produced story). In each of the following five chapters, Strout compares and contrasts the coverage of the Monitor with other elite newspapers of the day as well as provides a media self-critique of biases and balances in the press. As Strout notes:The Monitor took a stand against McCarthy, and proposed solutions to his method of smearing individuals....the Monitor's credo 'to injure no man, but to bless all mankind' precluded it from name calling and other crude methods of offering opinions, unlike the (San Francisco) Examiner and the (Chicago) Tribune, but not unlike the New York Times. Besides extended and thoughtful discussions of press objectivity and balanced reportage, highlights of the book include the examination of General Douglas MacArthur's dismissal, McCarthy's attacks on then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General George C. …

Medicare's Future: Fact, Fiction and Folly

Perhaps no single policy topic better illustrates the tensions within American politics at the beginning of a new millennium than does Medicare, the nation's thirty-five year commitment to ensuring senior citizens' financial protection against the costs of acute medical care. Our politics seems nearly overwhelmed by conflicting promises to balance the budget and pay down the national debt, enact tax cuts and protect broadly popular “entitlements.” Medicare, one of the largest of such entitlement programs, has become a lightning rod for conflicts over how to resolve these competing goals. As a result, the nation finds itself in the midst of a bewildering mix of crisis talk, fact throwing and ideological name calling, with all the confusion and distortion one would expect from such a mix.

Name-calling and nicknames in a sample of primary school children.

Name-calling, unkind nicknames and other forms of verbal harassment represent some of the most prevalent forms of bullying in school but they have been little studied. Name-calling and nicknames in particular are ambiguous social events that can serve positive as well as negative goals, and their adverse consequences can be difficult to identify. (i) To assess the incidence of nicknames and name calling as reported by a sample of primary school children; (ii) to examine the kinds of names reported by children, and to relate these to names reported in other social contexts; (iii) to explore the impact that name-calling and nicknames have on children. Pupils (N = 60) from the top two classes in a British primary school completed a questionnaire; 20 of the children were subsequently interviewed. Pupils completed a questionnaire that was constructed for this study. Pupils were asked to provide examples of nicknames and to report on the types and incidence of several forms of verbal harassment. The interview included questions which aimed to explore the children's reactions to harassment. Being called disliked nicknames, called names, teased, and other forms of verbal harassment were reported by most of the sample, with more than 20% of children experiencing nasty comments and unkind nicknames on a daily basis. Girls reported more disliked nicknames than boys. The most common nicknames referred to the child's appearance, whereas nasty comments and untrue stories contained a preponderance of sexual references. In the interview, nearly all children reported that being called names and nicknames were negative experiences that caused distress. Name-calling and the assignment of unkind nicknames are prevalent and hurtful++ features of school life. The kinds of names are similar to those reported in other studies of children, adolescents, and adults. It is proposed that these names are hurtful because they threaten the child's identity.

Acts of Psychological Aggression against a Partner and Their Relation to Physical Assault and Gender

The overall positive association between aggression and physical assault is well known. We used an item analysis to assess whether specific acts of aggression are more closely associated with physical assault than others. Male and female undergraduates (n = 374) completed an early version of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales about a courtship relationship. Results indicated that all items were associated with physical assault for both men and women. Only certain items reflecting malicious intent, such as destroying the property of one @ threatening to hit one's and some name calling, discriminated between the presence of minor and severe violence. Some associations were stronger for males than for females, indicating that males may be more likely to engage in multiple forms of These findings have implications for defining a battering syndrome. Key Words: gender partner psychological aggression. Psychological aggression has been an understudied component of violence, perhaps because it has more normative support than physical assault (Vissing, Straus, Gelles, & Harrop, 1991). Numerous clinical analyses, however, indicate that aggression, which includes verbal and other attacks that do not directly involve assaulting another's body, is an important component of battering (e.g., NiCarthy, 1987; Pence & Paymar, 1993; Walker, 1984) and may be even more damaging than physical assaults in the long run (Berger, Fischer, & Rose, 1994). Nonetheless, there are only a few studies that have quantitatively examined aggression, and some of these have looked at abuse in isolation from other forms of that may be occurring in the same relationship (e.g., Kasian & Painter, 1992; Stets, 1991). Those who have examined the correlation between physical and aggression have consistently demonstrated that higher levels of aggression are associated with higher levels of physical assault (Murphy & O'Leary, 1989; Stets, 1990; Straus, 1974; Tolman, 1995). To date, however, this association has been examined only in the aggregate. That is, only overall levels of aggression have been correlated with overall levels of physical assault. Although this is an essential first step in any study of the occurrence of multiple forms of abuse, these studies do not examine important differences in the nature of the association between degrees of and physical The Issue of Gender Parity in Partner Violence Research In particular, past research of this type has led to a major controversy: Is there gender parity in the perpetration of (cf. Johnson, 1995; Straus, 1990a). Many studies of physical assault, especially those using community and student samples, have not found gender differences in rates of assault (e.g., Stets & Straus, 1990). Previous research on aggression has also suggested that rates of inflicting this form of abuse are comparable for mates and females in intimate relationships (e.g., Stets, 1991; Straus & Sweet, 1992). Stets found this to be true even at the item level of measurement. Although there is one published exception to this pattern (Kasian & Painter, 1992, found more verbal abuse by males than females), these studies still contrast sharply with clinical and arrest reports of aggression perpetrated primarily by males (Koss et al., 1994). The issue of gender parity has been the driving force behind recent theoretical moves to reexamine what is meant by or battering. Johnson (1995) has suggested that may consist of two fairly distinct phenomena. He calls the kind of primarily found in community surveys common couple violence and the severe abuse described in more clinical analyses patriarchal terrorism. …

Standing at the Crossroads

Standing at the CrossRoads Bryant Keith Alexander (bio) Standing at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride, Standing at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride, Ain’t nobody seem to know me, everybody passed me by. —Crossroad Blues I am the fifth child of seven children, the fourth boy of five boys. I was born into a social experiment that my parents called a family. In spite of the dynamic social interaction that goes on in a large family, I grew up a very private kid, constantly demanding his own space, his own place, his own identity—separate from my brothers (the athletic brother, the talented brother, the handsome brother, the younger brother). I always felt that I was at a crossroads between who I was and wanted to be and who they were, my biological brothers and my cultural brothers—and the directions that their lives were taking them. The house that I grew up in was located on a corner lot in the center of our neighborhood, at a crossroads between Simcoe Street and 12th Street. All the local kids flocked over to our house. My mother used to say, “with seven kids you’re bound to attract a lot more.” Our yard was the place to be. We had pecan trees and mulberry trees, a fig tree and a pine tree. We had a big front porch, an area for football and a dirt basketball court. This was the main attraction. Guys from around the neighborhood would come with their attitude and bravado, fighting over who would be shirts or skins. Sporting their new Converse tennis shoes, these guys would walk into our yard talking a whole lotta shit, who would win, by how many points and who would make it to the NBA. These Black guys performed the pageantry of youthful dreaming and the ritual of growing up. I watched the fellas from the side window, one of two in the living room of our house. I would watch them, young Olympians in the prime of their manhood—calling up the dirt, swirling in dust clouds of hopes and dreams. Their bodies were caked with a mixture of sweat, dirt and tenacity. The basketball court was a crossroads, a passage into another time, another space, a ticket to another place. The other window in the living room looked out the front. The house that I grew up in was located across the street from Syrie Funeral Home. During the evening I would often look through it and see the pageantry of death and the ritual of saying good-bye. In the distance I could hear the mournful wails of those feeling grief. I could see the old men sipping from a bottle of courage near the dumpster. I saw children doing what children do—some playing games, others engaged in solemn social [End Page 343] banter. I saw people looking silently, longingly into the distance, standing at the crossroads of their memories and their reality. On September 7, 1994, I drove from Carbondale, Illinois, to Lafayette, Louisiana, to attend the funeral of my brother Nathaniel Patrick Alexander, who had died from complications with AIDS three days earlier. Family members and friends asked why I didn’t fly, but I needed the time. In my informed confusion I thought that if I delayed getting there I could somehow suspend time. During that eleven hour drive I crossed real and imagined borders, traveling down a road that took me to painfully familiar places: The day he told me he was gay. The day he introduced me to a partner. The day he called me and said, “Are you coming home this summer?” The day I helped him move home. The day I found out he had AIDS. The day he said, “I’m sorry I let you down.” The day he said, “I love you.” The day he died. As I pulled into Lafayette, I reflected on another special day. After a name calling episode with some of the local boys in which I was the focus of their pro-masculine anti-sissy juvenile male posturing, my brother sat me down and said, “I see me in...

Speaking Giraffe Language

Linguistic violence is violence in the use of language. That would include what we say and how we say it, and its implications. Lying or other misleading language, slander, and malicious gossip could be viewed as linguistic violence. They often do violence to the social fabric, undermine trust, and cause harm in various ways. Shouting into someone's face (especially in situations in which this could predictably escalate into physical violence), name calling, and not allowing others a fair opportunity to be heard could also be regarded as linguistic violence. Some linguistic violence of this sort is obviously intentional, but much linguistic violence is merely habitual and may even seem innocuous. What follows will focus on forms of linguistic violence that are often not seen as such, and on alternatives to such linguistic violence.

Perceived stigmatization among overweight African-American and caucasian adolescent girls

Purpose: To explore how African-American and Caucasian adolescent girls describe weight-related stigmatization experiences and their responses to these experiences. Methodology: Fifty girls from five urban Midwest high schools participated in the study (mean age 16.1 years, mean body mass index 33.6). The girls participated in clinical research interviews, which were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded. Results: All but two of the participants described stigmatizing experiences, the most frequently reported of which were direct and intentional, such as name calling and teasing. Hurtful comments and behaviors by family members and peers which appeared to be less intentional were also described by study participants. Responses to these experiences varied both within and across interviews and included ignoring or attempting to ignore hurtful experiences, feeling hurt, and getting mad. Conclusions: The results stress the importance of discussing issues of stigmatization and responses to these hurtful experiences with overweight youth within clinical and educational settings. Furthermore, family members, teachers, and nonoverweight peers need to increase their awareness of the impact of their remarks on and behavior toward overweight youth within a society that values thinness. © Society for Adolescent Medicine, 1998

Bullying in schools: self reported anxiety, depression, and self esteem in secondary school children

Evidence exists of considerable problems with bullying and bullied children in secondary schools. In the largest survey in the United Kingdom to date 10% of pupils reported that they had...

Prehistory in Peril: The Worst and Best of Durango Archaeology, by Florence C. Lister, 1997, University Press of Colorado

The history of archaeology in the United States (and elsewhere) is fraught with examples of real and imag­ined conflicts of interest between academics, professionals and government officials on the one hand and their local counterparts of amateur archaeologists, newspaper reporters, artifact speculators and just inter­ested citizens. Florence Lister has reconstructed the story (still ongoing by the way of the interplay of opposing schools of thought as it involved archaeology in the Durango, Colorado, vicinity). Given a subject beset with emotions. acquisitions. misrepresentations, rumors, name calling, mistrust, and occasionally, cooperation between the parties involved, the author has presented the fascinating history of Durango archaeology in a documented, readable and unbiased book that derives much of its value by calling forth archival material that has until now been unavailable or has existed as nebulous oral tradition.

The Ideology of “Fag”: The School Experience of Gay Students

used to devise ways of seeing social organization in the speech and graffiti in which the ideology of fag is realized in schools. His conception of the dialogic explicates the relationship between researcher and informants, as well as the dialogues internal to informants' narratives. Excerpts from their stories create windows into the local practices of the ideology of fag as they experienced it and made available the social organization of their everyday school lives. Analysis focuses on how speech, whether as verbal abuse or homophobic graffiti, concerts antigay activities, articulating to the wider organization of gender and the school as a regime. Informants' stories describe how fag as a stigmatized object is constituted in gossip. Aspects of youths' appearance are interpreted with reference to fag as an underlying pattern. Everyday practices of fag-baiting, such as poking fun, teasing, name calling, scrawling graffiti on lockers, insulting and harassing someone, produce the fag as a social object. The language intends a course of action isolating the gay student and inciting to physical violence. Verbal abuse both is and initiates attack. As a form of public speech, graffiti constitute a depersonalized form of threat and harassment. Whether a gay student is identified as fag or not, he acquires a gay identity/ consciousness through the practices of the ideology of fag. What the article describes is a normal part of school organization. The social relations of heterosexuality and patriarchy dominate its public space. Being gay is never spoken of positively (in these informants' experience). Teachers are reported as being generally complicit by their silence if not actively participating in the ideology. Attacks on and ostracism of gay students are taken for granted. The heterosexism of the regime makes fag the stigmatized other and, reflexively, fag as stigmatized other feeds into the regime's heterosexism. Thus, the gay students' stories show the school's complicity in the everyday cruelties of the enforcement of heterosexist/homophobic hegemony. Gay and lesbian youth attend schools throughout the nation .... These students-from every ethnic and racial background, in urban, suburban, and rural schools-have sat

Misleading and name–calling rather than calling for research

Misleading and name–calling rather than calling for research

Decentering the First Amendment

George W. Pring & Penelope Canan, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv + 279. $59.95 cloth; $24.95 paper. I. The Authors' Law-Centered Ideology and Alternative Visions The power and limits of this book lie in its simplicity. In SLAPPs, Pring and Canan identify a problem, tell why it is serious, and offer a way to deal with it. The problem is the proliferation of SLAPP suits (an acronym for strategic lawsuits against political participation), which are civil complaints or counterclaims filed against nongovernment individuals or organizations that have tried to use their influence by speaking or writing on public issues. A typical SLAPP suit involves a developer suing a neighborhood group in response to the group's claim at a zoning meeting that the developer's proposed housing development will cause environmental degradation. The developer sues for libel, slander, or defamation on the grounds that what was said was a lie and damaged his reputation. The authors cut to the chase by convincingly showing that despite all this talk about slander, damage, truth, and reputation, these suits try to stop behavior that is protected by the First Amendment's petition clause, which grants the right of individuals to petition government for redress of grievances. Judges should see these cases as that and noting else. In the authors' minds, this right is the foundation of political participation, and the responses to these suits should be swift and straightforward in order to avoid chilling participation. The proper swift response is a countersuit asking for summary dismissal on the grounds that the litigation violates the petition clause of the First Amendment. The book attempts to document the seriousness of the problem by showing the wide variety of policy issues and settings where these suits appear. It discusses the impact of these cases, especially how they chill participation even when the SLAPPs lose in court as they usually do, and it describes the best ways to counter SLAPP suits. Both authors have been heavily involved with SLAPP issues around the country. Pring has been expert witness regarding the chilling effects of such lawsuits. Canan was actually a target of a threatened suit, has worked on such litigation, and has spoken all over the country about the danger of this kind of litigation. The book SLAPPs is driven by a powerful ideology that is based on faith in the effectiveness and dominance of formal law. Official law is at the center of this story. The book is about threats to that law and how law can be used in its official capacity to stave off these threats. Pring and Canan's perspective resembles that of the former film critic and now columnist Frank Rich in his discussion of the film The People versus Larry Flynt. Like Rich (1996:55), the authors want us to root for the Constitution. Rich's column, which was reprinted as advertisement for the film (e.g., in New Yorker 1996:55) claims that The People versus Larry Flynt is an eloquent antidote to anyone who would jawbone the First Amendment to clean up the gross excesses of our The SLAPPs authors have to contend with a different kind of jawboning of the First Amendment and with cultural excesses that do not involve sexual degradation and voyeurism but rather lying, name calling, exaggeration, and accusations that many people find offensive, excessive, and indicative of the decline of our civic culture. Whatever their legal rights, the targets of SLAPP suits often carry out these civic cultural excesses. In this book the name callers, petition circulators, and passionate opponents are the heroes, or at least the victims who must be legally vindicated, not because of their character or who they are but because their beliefs and activities are protected by the petition clause of the First Amendment even if their behavior is unseemly and their words false. …

Name calling is not analysis

Name calling is not analysis

Europe's monetary malaise: international institutions and domestic policy commitments

A yearlong nightmare for the European Monetary System (EMS) began in September 1992. Amid name–calling, finger–pointing, and hand–wringing, the British pound and the Italian lira dropped out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). In succeeding months, virtually every other ERM currency came under attack.1 Three of them—the Spanish peseta, the Portuguese escudo, and the Irish punt—devalued within the system. Three others—the French franc, the Belgian franc, and the Danish krone—avoided devaluation, but only at the price of recurrent and costly rounds of intervention by multiple central banks. Finally, in August 1993, the defenders of the parities surrendered. The twelve EMS countries agreed to expand the fluctuation margins from 2.25 per cent on either side of parity (6 per cent for Spain, Portugal and the UK) to 15 per cent on either side of parity. The wider margins eliminated the potential for speculative attacks, but left the system only the thinnest veneer of exchange rate coordination. This article seeks not to assess the causes of the crisis but rather to explain why the EMS governments did not defuse it with a realignment—the mechanism built into the ERM for precisely such occasions.

Sexualized components of verbally abusive statements by residents with dementia diagnoses

Staff members were surveyed about their experiences with verbal abuse by residents in a geropsychiatric unit of a psychiatric hospital. They were asked to indicate the nature of the verbal abuse directed toward them and to indicate the worst thing a resident had ever said to them. Perceived sexual practices and preferences were a focus of insult described by many staff. The majority of “worst thing” said to them statements were sexual insults, with name calling using vulgar terminology and vulgar terms referring to male genitalia occurring with highest frequency. Examples of the kinds of abusive statements heard in the geropsychiatric facility are provided. Implications of sexual name calling in the geriatric long term care facility are discussed.

Sticks and Stones: The Industrial Appeal Tribunal's Code of Practice on Name Calling

Sticks and Stones: The Industrial Appeal Tribunal's Code of Practice on Name Calling

Treatment of Dysfunctional Adult Reactions to Being Called Abusive Names

A case study of the effects of family systems cybernetic sociofeedback therapy in treating a client inolved in being called abusive names is presented along with a theoretical discussion of functional and dysfunctional reactions to being called abusive names. In addition, the authors identify different types of dynamics which appear to predispose individuals to react to abusive name calling with dysfunctional, rather than functional behavior. Relevant considerations for treating such clients are also discussed.

Bullying in School: It Doesn't Have To Happen

Being bullied in school is not of growing or just a rite of passage. Some children who endure bullying never get over the fear and the humiliation, according Mr. Barone. By working together, schools and parents can make going school an experience that students will enjoy, not dread. Almost everybody can tell a story or two about having once been victimized in school by a bully. Many people can discuss in detail the incidents surrounding the experience and can even remember the name of the bully and the grade level at which the trauma occurred. Few of us go through all the years of schooling unscathed. And while most of us get over the fear and the humiliation, some do not. Nathan Feris, a seventh-grader at DeKalb High School in DeKalb, Missouri, decided that enduring four years of taunting by other children, who called him chubby and walking dictionary, was more than enough. On 2 March 1987 Feris brought a gun school and fatally shot another student before turning the gun on himself in class. Classmates said that nobody really had anything against Nathan. He was just someone pick on, they said.(1) A set of parents in Japan have filed a 22-million-yen damage suit against the Tokyo metropolitan government and the parents of two alleged bullies, claiming that their 13-year-old son's suicide was caused by ijimi (bullying). The parents also claim that the school principal and several teachers not only failed intervene stop the harassment, but actually assisted the bullies in their activities. The boy hanged himself in a railway rest room and left a note naming two classmates as the cause of his anguish.(2) It seems that bullying has been a problem in schools for as long as there have been schools. Why is this so? Although not encouraged, bullying continues be a problem for many children because it is widely tolerated. Teachers, school officials, parents, and other students too often seem by as children are degraded, humiliated, beaten, and ridiculed. Left unchecked, bullying in school can lead tragic consequences akin the two cases mentioned above. Even when suicide or murder is not the outcome, bullying can leave lasting emotional and psychological scars on children. Furthermore, research has shown that bullying can extend across the generations: the children of bullies often become bullies themselves. Why, then, do school officials, teachers, and parents often appear take so little notice? One reason may be because many adults consider bullying be a normal part of growing up. Confronting a bully is considered one of the rites of passage for a boy. Unfortunately for the victim, the age-old advice stand up to the bully and fight back usually leads more violent bullying. Rarely does the bully back down. A second reason why bullying continues unabated might be that educators have become desensitized bullying and do not even see it. Thus they seldom report it. A third reason could be that the schools are overwhelmed by other issues and problems outside of education with which they must deal. And finally, schools may not want identify bullying as a problem because they do not have the resources address it. Scope of the Problem Students who are the victims of bullies and school officials who hold the power stop them have very different perceptions of the problem. This difference has hindered effective prevention efforts. I developed a survey that was administered in spring and summer of 1993 two groups in upstate New York. The first group consisted of 847 eighth-graders; the second group consisted of 110 counselors, teachers, and administrators in the same schools as the students. The survey contained the following definition of bullying: is a situation when a student or group of students is mean you over a long period of time (weeks or even months). Bullying can either be physical (hitting, kicking, and so on) or it can be verbal (threats, name calling, gossiping, or ignoring). …

What's wrong with sociology?

I was asked to write on what's wrong. If I had been asked to write on what's right, I could have done that.2 But I will do what I was asked to do. Remember, however, I was not asked to be balanced, totally objective, or diplomatic. I did do some research. My first reaction had been, What's wrong with sociology? It's all embarrassing, pretentious, painfully obvious, turgid, humbug. (I had just returned from the annual meetings.) To document this notion I flipped through recent issues of three or four of the leading journals and was surprised. By and large the published articles in the major journals can stand anyone's test of academic/scientific quality. They are sober, carefully researched, well documented, and contain very little overt ideology, back scratching, self-promotion, or name calling. They are poorly written and the reader often feels the topic is not very exciting, b-ut in terms of basic intellectual quality, mainstream academic sociology need not bow to any other social science.

Reflections on the “Orientalized Orientals”

What we really need is a critical language and a full-scale critical culture, not name calling or the rhetorical equivalent of political murder. Our purpose is to assess and critique power in the Arab world. Not according to grandiose schemas imported from Hegel and Stalin and so on: many of the miseries of the Arab left are ascribable to the importation of methodological instruments or Orientalist models from abroad having no relation to our life. We must ingeniously and imaginatively develop composite or hybrid models of the sort, for example, of Abdallah Laroui in North Africa, or Anwar Abdel Malek. Like-minded individuals have to give such a critique of power greater currency in their discussion. -Edward Said, Intellectuals and the War, 1991.