Key terms/concepts
1. Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura) suggests that learning is a cognitive process where individuals learn their behaviors and actions through observation or direct instruction from a social environment/cue.
2. Significant others/role models: Family, friends, peer groups, neighbors, teachers, and subcultures will educate or show us violation or conformity to societal norms. These key players will shape and form our perception of life and will geared us towards learning deviance or conformity. …show more content…
The students in room 203 self-segregated into different racial groups at the beginning of the film. The students associate themselves with their own people and are hostile with other racial groups. They also came off as rude, ignorant, tough, rugged, and they all shared the same dislike for Ms. Erin Gruwell. As the film progresses, we slowly see the attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of the students changing. This change is due to the new group the students are associating themselves with. The new group is an emergence of the different racial groups uniting together to become one. Aside from the formation of the new group, Ms. Gruwell’s role as a teacher greatly attributes to each student’s character development. Marcus, in particular, has the greatest character development among her students. This is evident in the scene where he returns home and asks his mother to take him back. He whispers, “I want to go home… I don’t want to be on the streets anymore.” Marcus returning home to his mother shows him deviating from the life of crimes. “Being off the streets” implies that he is not going to shoot, deal, or kill. This change in Marcus is greatly due to Ms. Gruwell’s role as a key player in his life. She taught Marcus and the other students that they did not need to conform to social standards. The social standards that are set for her students were for them to be hoodlums and to live a life committing crimes. Hence, Ms. Gruwell plays a significant role in Marcus’s life …show more content…
The 5 techniques of Neutralization includes:
1. Denial of Responsibility: When an offender denies responsibility for his or her action.
2. Appeal to higher loyalties: When an offender justifies his or her action/misconduct as doing something for the “greater good.”
3. Condemnation of the condemners: When an offender shifts his or her blame off to someone else.
4. Denial of injury: When an offender denies that his or her action does not cause any harm or damage.
5. Denial of a victim: When an offender believes that the victim deserves to be punished for the crime he or she commits.
Examples from the film
1. “Denial of injury” is presented in the scene where Eva speaks about her hatred for White people because they wrongly took her father away from her family. She insists that her father did nothing wrong – he did not cause any harm or damage. She blames White people for mistreating her father, her family, and her people because they are prejudice and believe they have the authority to do anything simply because they “run the