Social Issues in Education: Teenage Pregnancy, Bullying, and Television Media

This essay discusses the negative impact of teenage pregnancy, bullying, and television media on individuals, families, and communities. It also provides possible solutions to these problems.

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Social Issues in Education
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Introduction
Teen age pregnancy is one of the common problem that is escalating from the past
couple of decades. Today, young girls who are below the age of 20 gets pregnant and they do
not consider the consequences has to be followed later. Today, young girls are unaware about
the cause of effects of teenage pregnancy and it not only affects them but the entire family is
affected along the child. So, it is quite important for all the girls to be aware about the teen
pregnancy stats and also know how a teenage pregnancy can change their entire life forever.
The first step towards prevention would be the day when a girl and her parents would know
the facts about the teen pregnancy. Today, over the years, teenage pregnancy has become
slightly of an endemic (Kearney & Levine, 2012).
In early 1990’s, teen girls were aware of the effects of pregnancy and they used to get
pregnant very rarely and if in some cases, if they were pregnant, they were almost frowned
upon. According to the past history shown in America, it was stated that three out of ten girls
are pregnant at least once before they turn out to be 20 years old. So this contributes to 70,000
teen girls to be pregnant every year. The television media has always played a negative role.
Girls who gets pregnant in high school is not that easy as the teens think because it seems
easy to watch series and but it is not all applicable in practical life. Movies and the shows on
the television media such as MTV’s 16 and pregnant and Teen Mom documents how a teen
mother lives her life and faces the problems and challenges. So, in order to stop such cases, it
is very crucial to make the teens aware about the facts related to pregnancy and what are its
harmful effects on one’s life (Secura, Madden & Peipert, 2014).
Problems
There are huge number of problems that are related to teen age pregnancy and also
sources like television media and bullying. When a teen girl gets pregnant, she has to leave
the school because she has become parent and she needs to take care of the child as well. It
was found that over 50% of the teen mothers are not graduated. Apart from this, those who
complete their studies take the help of their parents. However, it is also analyzed that
daughters who get pregnant take help of their parents to serve their grandchildren so that girl
can complete her study. There are only few schools who offers day care programs to teen girls

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after they get pregnant. It was found that less than 2% of the total teenage mothers has earned
a college degree at the age of 30. This has took place just because they have someone
excluding herself to take care and nurture for. Working, taking care of child and going to
school is not an easy task. Race has also impacted in the teen age pregnancy. It was found that
in 2008, teen age pregnancy rate that took place among Hispanic teens and African American
teens lied between 15-19 years. This was only because of the poor poverty level that was seen
between two races and lack of knowledge and education at schools as well as at home. In
addition to this, bullying is referred to unwanted behavior of an individual that mostly take
place in school children which creates imbalance on one’s health. The person who is bullied
lay sometimes suffer from long lasting problems and quite often the problem may be serious
too (Strasburger, Cross, & Moreno, 2013).
Bullying affects not only the victim but also the people around. Those who are the
witness, those who suffer and those who bully, all of them are equally affected. There are
many problems associated with bullying such as mental pressure, substance use and
sometimes suicide too. Suicide is considered to be one of the most common problem faced by
young age (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). Those who are bullied have negative impact on
physical and mental health. People suffer from depression and stress and they feel lonely and
sad all the times. They may not be able to take proper sleep and eat. Kids who study at school
may reduce the academic performance and they may skip or get dropped out from the school
(Hinduja & Patchin, 2014).
Similarly, television media has also played a major role and created a negative impact
on the whole world. The total amount of violence that is created with television media is
highly growing up. Today an average child looks at 12000 violent acts per year in television
media. Violent acts include murders, rapes and many more. Heavy doses of watching
television has increased aggressiveness and changed behavior in an individual and apart from
this, youth are also involved in committing suicides after linking their real life with that of
television series (Zillmann & Bryant, 2013). In today’s generation, rap music is one of the
root cause of all the negative impacts. The lyrics involved in rap music do not convey any
important message. The music just follows the beats but they do not show any positive

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aspects. Effects of television media may be physical and psychological (Huesmann & Eron,
2013).
Solutions
Every problems has a possible solutions. Sometimes a person gets highly addicted tit v
and they tend to sit for hours. This may lead to unwanted effects on the individual and may
create serious health issues as well. It will not only affect the health but the person may get
involved in unnecessary activities because of the shows and series shown on TV channels.
One must eliminate the screen timings. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, it
was recommended that children who are below the age of 2years have no screen timings that
include programming which is highly designed for infants and babies and toddlers as well. If
it comes to adults and youngsters, they must reduce their involvement in television media an d
be aware of the negative aspects. One may create a positive environment that is all depends on
the thinking capacity of the individuals (Greenfield, 2014).
Additionally, teen age pregnancy can also be controlled by following some measures
that must be taken on highest priority. One of the common solution is providing moral
training and sex education (Stanger-Hall & Hall, 2011). Parents must teach their children
about the moral values and norms and one must know the fear of god to lead moral upright
life. Abstinence from sex such as oral, anal or vaginal is one of the most common behavior
that is accurate and effective in order to reduce teenage pregnancy. According to National
Campaign stresses, abstinence from sex is the best option for adolescences as it evades early
prenatal period, parenthood as well as sexually transmitted contaminations (STIs).
Moreover, the responsibility to defend children from all methods of abuse, counting
bullying, is the obligation of parents, teachers, and other adults who lives in the community who
are in interaction with children and youth. Apart from this, parents must safeguard their children
when they are at home. Bullying can be controlled by promoting health care relationships and
supporting those children and adults by creating social skills, developing better understanding,
marinating the feeling of social responsibility and citizenships (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010).

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Conclusion
Thus, from the above essay, it can be concluded that bullying, teen age pregnancy and
television media which also includes rap music, has created a harsh impact on an individual,
family members, community and all those who surrounds them. There are many problems that
has been created along with the possible solutions as well. So, it is very important for an
individual to reduce such negative factors that will affect his/her life.
References
Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and
computers. Psychology Press.
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2010). Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide. Archives of
suicide research, 14(3), 206-221.
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2014). Bullying beyond the schoolyard: Preventing and
responding to cyberbullying. Corwin Press.
Huesmann, L. R., & Eron, L. D. (Eds.). (2013). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-
national comparison (Vol. 7). Routledge.
Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2012). Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high
and why does it matter. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(2), 141-63.
Secura, G. M., Madden, T., & Peipert, J. F. (2014). Provision of no-cost, long-acting
contraception and teenage pregnancy. New England Journal of Medicine, 371(14),
1316-1323.
Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy
rates: why we need comprehensive sex education in the US. PLoS One, 6(10), e24658.
Strasburger, V. C., Cross, C., & Moreno, M. A. (2013). Children, adolescents, and the media.
Pediatrics, 132(5), 958-961.

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Ttofi, M. M., & Farrington, D. P. (2011). Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce
bullying: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental
Criminology, 7(1), 27-56.
Zillmann, D., & Bryant, J. (Eds.). (2013). Selective exposure to communication. Routledge.