Discrimination

This is the process of acting unjustly or treating people prejudicially depending on their race, age, or sex.  Discrimination can occur at the workplace in a way that those in higher positions tend to mistreat those in lower areas hence affecting them psychologically.  De facto discrimination is a type of discrimination practice that is not stated or approved by the law. For example, sexual harassment at work by fellow workmates (Whitley and Kite, 2016). De facto discrimination can be hinge on people’s ethnicity, gender, and religion, race, approached by that person or group in their daily lives especially in societies that are not ruled by the law.

Institutional Discrimination

This is a type of discrimination that involves occurs mostly in societies in that individuals are being mistreated by being treated unjustly by the institutions in general. This is through the actions of those in the institutions being biased, knowingly or unknowingly hence promoting institutional discrimination (Whitley and Kite, 2016).  Racism is one of the institutional discrimination examples.

Discrimination can occur anywhere and at any time.  For example, I observed discrimination in my class where there was this student who was suffering from obesity and a group of students used to call him names in form of unnecessary jokes and an act of bullying (Swearer and  Hymel 2015). This made him feel so discriminated hence affected his self esteem. The student started distancing himself from others hence a drop in his academic performance.  The actions of his fellow students knowingly or unknowingly affected this student psychologically which was not good.

Due to this acts of discrimination the student had to start skipping school because he felt demoralized by his fellow students which led to the loss of his self-confidence.  The formulated names like ‘fatty’ affected him greatly and he could not take it anymore. So he decided to later quit school.

The actions of those students made me feel bad because I took that as a form of bullying the student and I knew that that would affect the student who was being made fun of in a big way (Swearer and Hymel 2015). Their actions as seen were prone to making the student not want to freely associate with others like before due to lack of self-confidence.

I tried to act as a negotiator to both the students. The one who was being bullied and the ones who were making fun of him. I explained to the students who were bullying the other student that what they were doing was not right and that they should stop (Swearer and  Hymel 2015). The students said they did not know that that was affecting the other student like it was and they saw it as a joke and some ignored me. I spoke the bullied student but he was already fed up and he was giving up already.

What I did not do was to report the problem to teachers to help solve the problem, which I believe if I had taken that action it would have stopped the bullying between students.

Knowing what I know now I would have stayed engaged in that, to ensure that I always check on this student often. This is to ensure that I know how he is doing both academically and personally as a friend. I will then ensure that I explain to him that what the other students are doing should not affect him because he is perfect and he should always keep that in mind. This will make the student feel cared for and valued hence maintenance of his self esteem. I will ensure that am emotionally, socially, and morally involved in the actions that both students take.

I would have always spoken my truth .This would have made me honest about my opinions, and my feelings towards my actions and the actions of my fellow students. This is that would have given my views to the teachers to help stop this actions before they get worse.

To conclude, discrimination should not be the way of life as it posses adverse effects on san individuals overall being .staying engaged as well as speaking your truth are effective ways of bringing an individual undergoing discrimination closer and in the right shape of mind.

References

Swearer, S., & Hymel, S. (2015). Bullying and discrimination in schools: Exploring variations across student subgroups. School Psychology Review, 44(4), 504-509.

Whitley Jr, B. E., & Kite, M. E. (2016). Psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Routledge.