Economic well-being and children's social adjustment: the role of family process in an ethnically diverse low-income sample

Using latent variable structural equation modeling, a family economic stress model that links economic well-being to child well-being in an ethnically diverse, low-income sample of 419 elementary school-age children was evaluated. The sample was 57% African American and 28% Hispanic, and most families were headed by single mothers. The results provided support for the position that family process is a critical mediator of the effects of economic hardship on children's social adjustment. Lower levels of economic well-being, and the corollary elevated perceptions of economic pressure indirectly affected parenting behavior through an adverse impact on parental psychological well-being. Distressed parents reported feeling less effective and capable in disciplinary interactions with their child and were observed to be less affectionate in parent-child interactions. In turn, less than optimal parenting predicted lower teacher ratings of children's positive social behavior and higher ratings of behavior problems. Multiple-group analyses revealed that the pathways by which economic hardship influences children's behavior appear to operate similarly for boys and girls, and for African American and Hispanic families.     

Cripping sex education: lessons learned from a programme aimed at young people with mobility impairments

This paper analyses sexuality and relationship education (SRE) in a Swedish college programme aimed at young people with mobility impairments. Interviews and focus groups were conducted to explore students’ experiences of the structure, content and usefulness of SRE, and college personnel’s SRE practices. Results show that, although many of the issues covered are pertinent for all young people, being disabled raises additional concerns: for example how to handle de-sexualising attitudes, possible sexual practices, and how reliance on assistance impacts upon privacy. Crip theory is used as an analytical framework to identify, challenge and politicise sexual norms and practices. Students’ experiences of living in a disablist, heteronormative society can be used as resources for developing cripistemologies, which challenge the private/public binary that often de-legitimises learners’ experiences and separates them from teachers’ ‘proper’ knowledge production. Crip SRE would likely hold benefits for non-disabled pupils as well, through its use of more inclusive pedagogy and in work to expand sexual possibilities. Crip SRE has the potential to disrupt taken-for-granted dis/ability and sexuality divides as well as to politicise issues that many young people presently experience as ‘personal shortcomings’.     

Mixed-sex or Single-sex Sex Education: How would young people like their sex education and why?

This article examines young people's views about sex education and focuses specifically on their views about interaction in single- and mixed-sex groups. Analysis of data from a survey of 3355 young people (aged 15/16 years), carried out in 13 co-educational English secondary schools (as part of the RIPPLE study), showed that the majority of girls, and about one-third of boys, would like some or all of their sex education to be delivered in single-sex groups. Data from 15 focus groups were analysed to examine the reasons for these preferences. The way in which sex education lessons are 'gendered' was explored by examining young people's views about the ways in which particular aspects of sex education classes (including the characteristics of teachers, the content, teaching methods and age of students) influenced their responses and interaction in lessons. Interaction in single- and mixed-sex focus group discussions was also analysed to provide insight into how interaction about sexual health issues may differ in single- and mixed-sex groups. It is concluded that the views of these young people support the call for more sex education with girls to be delivered in single-sex groups.     

Self estimates of general,crystallized, and fluid intelligences in an ethnically diverse population

Self-estimated intelligence is a quick way to assess people's conceptions of their own abilities. Furnham (2001) and colleagues have used this technique to make comparisons across culture and gender and different approaches to intelligence (such as g or Multiple Intelligences). This study seeks to build on past work in two ways. First, a large, diverse sample (N = 2309) enables the study of self-estimated intelligence across ethnicity. Second, one of the most prominent accepted intelligence theories is the Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) theory. Can laypeople distinguish between general, fluid, and crystallized intelligence? This study finds evidence for a “modesty bias” in Hispanic Americans. In addition, fluid and crystallized intelligences may simply be seen as general intelligence (particularly by Caucasians and males).     

Sexting and institutional discourses of child protection: The views of young people and providers of relationship and sex education

This article focuses on discourses of child safety and protection of stakeholder organisations (SOs) and school pastoral care co-ordinators (PCCs) on educating young people about sexting. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with the representatives of four organisations who assist schools in the delivery of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE); and with three PCCs in three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland to ascertain how their school educates and responds to sexting. Focus groups were also conducted with 17 (10 girls and 7 boys) 16–17-year-olds to explore their views on sexting. The results of this study reveal that the predominant discourse in RSE is child safety and protection, and abstention from sexting. The three main groups (young people, SOs and PCCs) vary, however, in how they view sexting behaviour: the stakeholders are largely cautious and counsel against sending sexual pictures, while the young people regard it as normal behaviour. RSE provided by the schools is inadequate and unrealistic, and does not represent what actually goes on in young people’s sexual lives. Young people want to be consulted on the content of RSE lessons and resources; and RSE content should desist from telling them not to sext and enable them to explore appropriate relationship behaviours, including sexting. Teachers should feel confident in teaching such material and should have access to appropriate training.     

Parental involvement in education during middle school: Perspectives of ethnically diverse parents,teachers, and students

Maintaining productive partnerships between families and schools is more complex when youth enter middle school. A systematic and inclusive understanding of the strategies parents use, youth want and need, and teachers' desire is needed to broaden our conceptualization and deepen our understanding of parental involvement in education. The authors captured the voices of 3 primary stakeholders in education (i.e., parents, teachers, and students) to identify the goals for parental involvement in education, identify consistencies across stakeholders in the conceptualizations of parental involvement in education, and deepen our understanding of the types of involvement that matter for adolescents. The study used grounded-theory analysis of 20 focus groups, with ethnically diverse parents, youth, and teachers (N = 150), along with quantitative indicators of involvement and interactions with schools. From these analyses scaffolding independence, linking education to future success, and communication emerged as the most consistent strategies for promoting achievement. Conceptualizations of home-based involvement were broadened. Ethnic variations in the general experiences of families at school were highlighted.     

Sexuality education for young people: a theoretically integrated approach from Australia

Background: Teachers of sexuality education can often be uncertain about what theoretical basis and pedagogical strategies to use in their teaching. Sexuality educational programmes designed by teachers can often show few evident theoretical principles that have been applied in its construction. Thus, there seems to be a dearth of evidence of ways in which teachers can use appropriate theoretical foundations in their planning and teaching in sexuality education.

Purpose: This paper aims to suggest a way of providing such an appropriate theoretical framework for sexuality education teachers of young people aged 7–15 years of age.

Analysis: Age-appropriate primary and middle school pedagogies based on two integrated educational theories, namely Anderson and Krathwohl's theoretical framework of learning and teaching, with Verbal Linguistic Intelligence from Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, were analysed and evaluated. Key considerations were the earlier maturing of girls and boys, findings from relevant literature about children and young people's cognitive capacities, as well as the relevance of curriculum content for upper primary and middle school students, and the concomitant need for better and earlier sexuality education.

Conclusion: This approach, integrating Anderson and Krathwohl's theoretical framework of learning and teaching, with Gardner's Multiple Verbal Linguistic Intelligence, may be useful to assist health and sexuality education teachers in identifying and anchoring pedagogies in a more theoretically structured manner, thereby enhancing the quality of their sexuality education planning and teaching.     

The views,verdict and recommendations for school and home sex and relationships education by young deaf and hearing people

The purpose of this survey study was to explore the views of young deaf and hearing people (16–25 years old) on school and home sex and relationships education (SRE). The study addressed a critical knowledge gap in the research literature on deaf youth's perception of SRE. The small-scale study explored young deaf people's experiences of SRE and the challenges they had faced when learning about sexuality and relationships. Recommendations on how to improve school SRE lessons were also obtained. Data were collected from 81 young people (n = 27 deaf, n = 54 hearing). Overall, deaf participants indicated greater levels of satisfaction with school SRE than hearing respondents. More deaf young people than young hearing people felt that the school had provided them with enough opportunities to learn about sexuality and relationships. The deaf group showed a preference for school SRE lessons to start at a later age than the hearing group. Mothers and friends were the two sources most frequently consulted in both groups. Teachers and school nurses were a third source frequently used by the deaf group. The views of deaf and hearing youth on their own SRE are important for the development, implementation and delivery of the school SRE curriculum. The study's findings can provide educators with valuable insight on the needs of a minority group who are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and sexual misinformation due to their sensory loss and associated factors.     

The salience and utility of school sex education to young men

This paper focuses on young men's views on the school sex education they have received, the influence of this sex education on their intended or actual behaviour, and the extent to which other sources of information complement or supplement school sex education. Thirty‐five in‐depth interviews and eight group discussions were conducted with male pupils from six schools in the east of Scotland. Most of those interviewed did cite school as a useful source in learning about sex. The most commonly named highlights were learning more about what girls think about sexual matters and learning how to use a condom. Nine described how something they had learned in school sex education had changed the way they had behaved in a sexual encounter. A further eight, who had not experienced sexual intercourse, talked about how they thought sex education would influence their behaviour in a positive way in the future. The most common criticism of sex education was that it was not explicit enough. Although friends and/or television were named by the majority of young men as useful, for most young men school sex education appeared to be the only substantive source of information they had received on sexual matters.     

办好中等职业教育 满足人民群众对高中阶段教育的多样化需求

在基础底子薄弱、经济社会发展不平衡的人口大省,采取得力措施,狠抓基础能力建设,强力推进职业教育攻坚工作,大力发展中等职业教育,满足经济社会发展、产业结构调整、转变经济增长方式对技能型人才和高素质劳动者的迫切需要,满足人民群众对教育的多样化、个性化需求,是贯彻落实科学发展观的重要举措。河南省的中等职业教育在社会各界的大力支持下,以技能大赛为抓手,探索课堂教学有效模式,促进学生终身学习和职业生涯可持续发展,全面提升中等职业教育教学质量和社会吸引力,为2020年实现高中阶段教育毛入学率达到90%,高等教育毛入学率达到40%的国家教育发展目标作出积极的贡献。     

Attitudes of a sample of English,Maltese and German teachers towards media education

Media education forms part of the National Minimum Curriculum of England, Malta and Germany. Teacher training courses differ greatly in how teachers are prepared to teach media education. In this paper we shall investigate the attitudes of a sample of teachers trained in England, Malta and in Germany towards their perceived importance of media education and the teachers' preparedness to teach the subject. This preliminary study had a sample of 132 participants, 33 teachers from England, 47 from Germany and 52 teachers from Malta. The tool used to collect data was an online questionnaire. The results show that teachers taking part in this study were not given enough training, or any training at all to be able to teach media education with the result that they do not feel sufficiently prepared to teach the subject. It is suggested by the authors that media education becomes a compulsory component of the initial teacher training courses as well as advanced training for teachers.     

Disciplining the conduct of young people in compulsory education policy and practice

Disciplining and pastoral power are central to the strategies and practices of intervening in the lives of young people deemed at risk of disengaging from school, or not completing their compulsory education. As an expression of power concerned with young people's welfare and self-improvement, disciplining and pastoral practices push young people towards greater responsibilism and employability. From 2004 to 2008, the State Government of Western Australia embarked on legislative change and policy implementation to increase the minimum compulsory school leaving age from 15 to 17. This facilitated a programme of interventions with some groups of young people deemed at risk of not meeting the newly minted minimum education requirements. Drawing on governmentality theory, research into this policy identifies and problematises its disciplining and pastoral practices. Interview data and policy documents are analysed to reveal the way that practices with young people, although framed as empowering and benign, worked to further connect them with the imperatives of neoliberalism.     

Young people's views of sex education: gender,information and knowledge

This paper derives from research that had the aim of understanding more about adolescents' views of sex education and adolescent sexuality. The data are taken from three separate pieces of research conducted in 1984, 1998 and 2003. This paper presents data about gender, information and knowledge relating to sexuality. It seeks to demonstrate that attitudes to information and knowledge vary significantly with gender. The data suggest that many adolescents we studied were offered different access to information about sex and sexuality in their families. The argument is that this has impact on the sources of information that they rely upon and prefer. We investigate the underlying issues about the ways boys obtain not only information about sex, but also their attitudes to sexual encounters. Sources of information and counselling about sexuality varied with gender. Boys and girls were exposed to different kinds of experience, in which information about sexuality and messages about desire also vary. Home and intimacy with parents, especially mothers, is important for many, although not all, girls in a way it is not for boys. This indicates a picture of boys learning about sex and sexuality in ways that by and large do not include adults, or more especially trusted adults, and where there appears to be some elements of exclusion from the family. This has important implications for sex education programmes, and may offer us insights into why the boys resist school sex education work.     

Sources of sex education as a function of sex,coital activity,and type of information

Previous studies of the sources of sex education are reviewed and critically analyzed. Most previous studies have examined the limited issue of which source of sex education is most important, examined the sources of only a few sexual topics, or used inadequate methodology. In the present study, more adequate data regarding the relative contributions of parents, schools, reading, and peers to information about each of 35 different sexual topics were obtained from a sample of 232 male and female, coitally experienced or inexperienced, midwestern college students. Individual reading and peers were the highest rated sources overall and on most of the subcategories of items. Schools were highly rated sources for topics related to the anatomy and physiology of sex and venereal disease. Coitally experienced (CE) individuals reported receiving more information overall than coitally inexperienced (CIE) individuals. However, contrary to previous speculations, CE and CIE individuals did not differ in the amount of information received from parents. Instead, CE individuals received more information through reading and from peers than did CIE individuals. Consistent with previous findings, amount of information received from parents correlated negatively with performance on a sexual knowledge test. Comparison of the present results with previous research suggested a developmental hypothesis, namely, that as individuals develop from early adolescence to young adulthood and become more sexually active, individual reading becomes a more important source of sexual information.     

Special education and minority ethnic young people in England: continuing issues

ABSTRACT

In countries that have developed special education (SE) provision, whether in segregated settings or ‘included’ in mainstream, racial, ethnic and immigrant minorities continue to be disproportionately represented. Explanations for placement in SE programmes continue to centre round assumptions of deficiencies in student abilities to learn and ‘behave’, their family backgrounds and communities. Many policy-makers, politicians, schools and teachers ignore or are ignorant of the historical background and social contexts in which these students are expected to learn. The article overviews some of this history and policy responses concerned with SE, low attainment and troublesome school behaviour in England, including recent evidence and current explanations for the placement of the students. A premise here is that research, policy and literature are still separating what is happening in ‘special’ education from other areas of education. This cannot continue, as world-wide moves towards inclusive education have meant that mainstream schools and colleges now incorporate (or still exclude) a range of students regarded as having learning difficulties or disabilities, and all young people are now expected to acquire some kind of qualification or be prepared for independent living.     

Formal and parental sex education differences among Hispanic young women by nativity status

This study sought to investigate the association between nativity status and Hispanic young women’s formal sex education and parental sex education in the USA. We used data from a cross-sectional sample of 310 Hispanic young women aged 18–24 years old from the 2013–2015 US National Survey of Family Growth. We assessed 11 outcomes: four formal sex education topics; receiving any formal sex education; a formal sex education scale; four parental sex education topics; and receiving any parental sex education. The majority of our sample was US-born Hispanic versus foreign born (72.6% and 27.4% respectively). Foreign-born Hispanics were less likely to have received any type of formal sex education than US-born Hispanics (adjusted odds ratio = 0.81; 95% confidence interval: 0.24, 0.68, p < 0.01). Foreign-born Hispanics were less likely to have received parental HIV sex education than U.S.-born Hispanics (aOR = 0.36; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.97, p < 0.05). Nativity status did not have a significant effect on each unit increase on the scale (aB = –0.07, SE = 0.16; aβ = –0.42, p > 0.05). Our results indicate that having appropriate sex education knowledge is better than not being cognisant. Future studies should however examine the quality and content of sex education programmes so policymakers can better understand these young women’s sexual behaviours and decisions.     

Domestic abuse prevention education: listening to the views of young people

This paper reports on findings derived as part of a two-year project funded by the European Union's Daphne III scheme, involving collaboration between seven partner organisations across six European countries. The project involved an evaluation, using questionnaires and focus groups, of domestic abuse prevention education programmes delivered in schools in the UK, France and Spain. This paper presents the findings from the UK focus group discussions, conducted with young people aged 10–11 years, and 13–14 years to explore their opinions about the intervention delivered in their school. The focus groups revealed the following challenges for service providers in this area: young people can misunderstand issues related to domestic abuse, especially the role of power and control within relationships; there is a tension between educators giving young people free expression to share their opinions and challenging sexism and other prejudices; and boys can become disengaged with gender-based interventions. These issues point towards three key considerations when implementing a domestic abuse prevention education intervention: programme content (the what); the teaching methods used (the how); and whether teachers or external organisations should deliver the programme (the who).