Social referents
How to stop slurs and hate graffiti at your school
Most students hate it, and almost nobody says so.
First: is it aimed at someone?
Aimed at a person
A slur said to someone.
Tell an adult at school. It’s a discipline issue, handled case by case.
Not aimed at anyone
Graffiti, as an expression of anger, or as the punchline of a bad joke.
This page. Follow the steps below.
Ask how many students it bothers
Students who laugh along usually think everyone else is fine with it. This survey asks how it makes you feel, then how many students you think it bothers.
Find the social referents
A social referent is the student a friend group watches to decide what’s normal. Not just the popular kids.
This is a separate, four-question survey about friendships. This data will be invaluable for any social issue you want to tackle, or for figuring out how to reach more students.
Have your responses?
Download the responses as a CSV and load them here. Mark students “Plan to ask” until the bar is full. Pick from every group, including the groups where you hear it most. Everything stays in this browser.
0 responses loaded · saved only in this browser
Invite referents to an initial meeting
Hey [name]! A bunch of students named you as someone people at [school] respect. We’re working on something about how people at school treat each other and I’d really like your take. Could you meet for 45 minutes on [day]? There’s food.
Ask a teacher you trust to host. The teacher books the room and supervises.
First meeting (45 minutes)
- Why you’re here (5 min). Classmates named them as people others listen to.
- The numbers (5 min). The two numbers from step 1, on one slide. Ask: does this match what you see?
- Listen (15 min). Where do you hear it most? Why do people laugh? What happens when someone says something? Would anyone in your group?
- Decide (20 min). Show the options in step 4 and let referents decide.
Run the campaign they choose
Say something
Each referent calls it out in their own friend group: in the moment, or later.
Share the numbers
Posters with the survey numbers, students’ own words, and the referents’ names.
Say something in the moment
- “Bro. Not that word.” Said flat, then move on. No speech.
- “You can do better than that.” Treats it as a lazy joke, not a moral failing.
- “Nobody’s laughing at that.” Works best once the survey numbers are out.
It works best from inside the group. A friend saying it lands; a stranger or a teacher saying it can make people defensive.
Bring it up afterward
A referent raises it later. There’s no laugh to ride and no audience to perform for.
- “The thing at lunch yesterday: I laughed, but it bugged me. Can we stop with that word?” One on one, not in front of the group.
- “Not trying to be weird, but can we not use that word in here? Most people at school hate it.” In the group chat, the day after.
Share the numbers
Lead with the numbers. When everyone sees that most students hate it, the people saying it stop thinking they’re funny or edgy. Put students’ own words and the referents’ names on it: a poster signed by classmates is much harder to mock than a slogan.
Edit the survey poster
Edit the open letter
Keep meeting
One meeting gets agreement. The follow-ups are what change anything. Meet every two or three weeks for the rest of the year, same room, same time, with food.
Every meeting after the first (30 minutes)
- What happened (20 min). Each person: one time they spoke up or didn’t, and how it went. What worked, what got laughed at.
- Next move (10 min). Keep going, try the other option, or add the posters.
Keeping it on track
- Talk about what happened, not who said it. It isn’t a place to name names.
- Students decide. The teacher keeps time and keeps it respectful, but doesn’t pick the plan.
- Show progress. In the spring, run the step 1 survey again.
What the research says
- Harassment at a Connecticut high school. Students with many friends at school spoke out against harassment at assemblies. Their friends’ harassment went down, and their sense of what was normal at school shifted (Paluck & Shepherd, 2012).
- Roots (56 New Jersey middle schools). Referents met every other week and ran their own campaign against conflict; conflict reports fell 30% (Paluck et al., 2016).
- Racist slurs on Twitter. Accounts that used the n-word to harass people were told “there are real people who are hurt” by an account that looked like a white man with many followers. They used the slur less afterward. The same message from a low-follower account didn’t work (Munger, 2017). Who says it matters as much as what they say.
- Bystanders on the playground. When a peer stepped in during bullying, the bullying stopped 57% of the time (Hawkins, Pepler & Craig, 2001).
None of these tested slurs that aren’t aimed at anyone in a high school, so this is our best bet, not a proven result.
Want help? Email ben@fix.school.