Daily reports of witnessing and experiencing peer harassment in middle school

Two studies examined daily incidents of peer harassment in urban middle schools. Sixth-grade students (M age = 11 years) described their daily personal experiences and witnessed accounts of peer harassment, and rated their negative feelings across a 2-week period. In Study 1 (n = 95), within-subject analyses across 4 days revealed that both personally experienced and witnessed harassment were associated with increases in daily anxiety, whereas witnessing harassment buffered students against increases in humiliation on days when they personally experienced harassment. Evidence for witnessing as a buffer against increases in humiliation and anger was also found in Study 2 (n = 97) that included 5 daily reports. Witnessing harassment also protected students against increases in negative self-perceptions.     

Susceptibility to peer influence during middle school: Links with social support,peer harassment,and gender

The present study explores concurrent relations between social support, gender, susceptibility to peer influence, and peer-based aggression and harassment in a socioeconomically and racially diverse sample of 774 seventh and eighth grade students. Results indicate that students perceiving lower support from their family or school were relatively more likely to be highly susceptible to peer influence, and to have friends who they believed were also highly susceptible to peer influence. Further, higher susceptibility to peer influence was associated with increased involvement in relational aggression and sexual harassment, both as a perpetrator and as a victim. Gender moderation effects were also found. The negative association of school support and susceptibility to peer influence was found greater in girls than boys. Girls who were highly susceptible to peer influence, or who had friends who were highly susceptible, had a relatively greater risk for involvement in relational aggression and sexual harassment, as compared with boys. Implications of these results for educators and school-based mental health professionals are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Executive function performance and trauma exposure in a community sample of children

ObjectiveThough children exposed to familial violence are reported to have difficulties with a range of emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., lower school achievement) that implicate executive function (EF) deficits, relatively little research has specifically examined EF as a function of trauma exposure in children.MethodsBased on parent report of children's exposure to potentially traumatic events, children (N = 110; Age_Mean = 10.39) from an ethnically diverse community sample were compared across three trauma-exposure groups: familial trauma, non-familial trauma, and no trauma. Children completed a battery of tests to assess working memory, behavioral inhibition, processing speed, auditory attention, and interference control.ResultsFamilial trauma (relative to non-familial and no trauma exposure) was associated with poorer performance on an EF composite (composed of working memory, inhibition, auditory attention, and processing speed tasks); the effect size was medium. Both trauma-exposure status and dissociation symptoms explained unique variance in EF performance after controlling for anxiety symptoms, socio-economic status, and potential traumatic brain injury. While IQ and EF performance were related, SES predicted unique variance in IQ (and not EF) scores, while familial-trauma exposure did not.ConclusionsThe contribution of trauma exposure to basic executive functioning held after taking into account symptoms (anxiety and dissociation), socio-economic status, and possible traumatic brain injury exposure. EF problems may provide one route via which maltreated children become at risk for peer, academic, and behavior problems relative to their peers.Practice implicationsEF problems may provide one route via which maltreated children become at risk for peer, academic, psychological, and behavior problems relative to their peers. Recently, intervention strategies have emerged in the anxiety and mood disorder treatment literatures that appear to effectively target EFs. As future research continues to specify the relationship between child trauma exposure and EF performance, these innovative treatments may have important practice implications for addressing EF deficits.     

The practices of dealing with children with special needs in school: a Norwegian perspective

The article has two parts. Part one deals with some historical developments in the field of special education in Norway. There has been a change in formulated policy from a clearly segregated system, then integration and mainstreaming and now intentions about inclusion as an ideal. The second part is about children with behavioural difficulties and especially children diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders) and how they are treated within the education system. Knowledge about these children’s situation is not very well developed or widespread in the Norwegian education system. The numbers of children with an ADHD diagnosis vary a lot between schools. Both diagnosis and treatment connected to ADHD have been highly controversial in Norway, as in many other countries. The gap between ideals and realities is a striking element in special education in Norway and also for these children. The inclusion criteria have not been met. The reasons for this are discussed.     

Dimensions of coping and anxiety symptoms in a community sample of young children

Coping style plays an important role in children’s wellbeing. This paper describes the patterns of associations between children’s self-reported coping styles and symptoms of anxiety in order to determine whether particular dimensions are associated with better adjustment. Participants were 2566 children (1268 girls, 1298 boys) aged 7–11 years attending 15 schools in the South East of England. Results showed that aspects of coping were differentially associated with children’s self-reported anxiety. Patterns of association also varied by age and gender. Dimensions of coping were shown to form distinct adaptive and maladaptive coping styles which were also differentially associated with anxiety. Analysis of these styles indicated that it is the absence of maladaptive coping strategies, rather than the presence of adaptive strategies, that is significant in emotional wellbeing. These findings suggest that interventions designed to reduce or extinguish maladaptive coping styles may be of particular benefit in facilitating emotional wellbeing.     

A comparison between intellectually gifted and typical children in their coping responses to a school and a peer stressor

The present study investigated the coping responses to two childhood stressors of fifth and sixth grade, gifted (n=52) and typical (n=55) children. The subjects were administered the Self‐Report Coping Scale for school and peer stressors (i.e., getting a lower grade than usual and having a fight with a friend). Teachers’ ratings of children's social and academic adjustment and academic potential were also obtained. Results indicated that gifted children endorsed problem‐solving strategies to a greater degree than typical children. Otherwise, gifted and typical children's reported coping strategies did not differ. Teachers’ ratings indicated better academic and social adjustment for gifted children. Future directions for the study of coping with stressors among gifted populations are addressed.     

Victimization and polyvictimization of Spanish children and youth: Results from a community sample

Most research into adolescent victimization and polyvictimization has been carried out in the United States and in northern European countries. The present study aims to determine the prevalence of victimization and polyvictimization in a community sample of Spanish adolescents. The sample consisted of 1,107 youth (M = 14.52, SD = 1.76), 590 males and 517 females, randomly recruited from 7 secondary schools in a north-eastern region in Spain. The Spanish version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire was applied, assessing 6 aggregate categories of childhood victimization (conventional crimes, caregiver, peer and sibling, witnessed and indirect, sexual, and electronic victimization). A total of 83% of adolescents reported at least 1 type of victimization during their lives, and 68.6% during the last year. Boys were generally more exposed to conventional crimes (68.0%), and girls to emotional abuse by caregivers (23.0%) and to sexual (13.9%) and electronic (17.6%) victimization during their lifetime. Age differences obtained in victimization rates for the past year confirmed that peer and sibling victimization peak in early adolescence (33.9%). Witnessing community violence was more frequent in older adolescents (34.7%). Almost 20% of the sample were considered as polyvictims (i.e., experienced victimization in 7 or more forms of victimization). Adolescent polyvictims experienced victimization in 4 or more domains during their lifetime. This study adds new information on the epidemiology of victimization in the international context and is the first to do so from the perspective of a country in south-western Europe. It illustrates that Spanish youth experience a higher level of victimization than official records suggest, and that gender and age should be taken into account when analyzing this complex area of study.     

Academic help-seeking and peer relations in school

This study investigated the relationship between peer relations and help-seeking behaviors. The subjects were 26 third grade and 48 fifth grade boys and girls. The roster-rating technique was used to obtain measures of children's perceived academic competence and social attractiveness in their reading and math classes. Intensive naturalistic observation of a subset of these children in their classrooms provided data on actual help-seeking behavior. The relationship between peer status and academic help-seeking was found to vary with the target of the help-seeking overture and the type of help requested.     

Developmental trajectories of sensory patterns from infancy to school age in a community sample and associations with autistic traits

This prospective study examined the latent growth trajectories of sensory patterns among a North Carolina birth cohort (N = 1517; 49% boys, 87% White) across infancy (6–19 months), preschool (3–4 years), and school years (6–7 years). Change rates of sensory hyper- and hyporesponsiveness better differentiated children with an autism diagnosis or elevated autistic traits from those with other developmental conditions, including non-autistic children with sensory differences. More sensory hyper- and hyporesponsiveness at infancy followed by steeper increases differentially predicted more autistic traits at school age. Further, children of parents with higher education tended to show stable or improving trajectories. These findings highlight the importance of tracking sensory patterns from infancy for facilitating early identification of associated challenges and tailored support for families.     

Contemporaneous and longitudinal associations between social behavior and literacy achievement in a sample of low-income elementary school children

This study investigates associations between social skills (aggression and prosocial behavior) and literacy achievement in a sample of low-income children (between 4 and 6 years old when the study began) during elementary school. Results revealed consistent associations between social skills and literacy achievement in the first, third, and fifth grades, but the patterns of the associations were different for aggression and prosocial behavior. While the strength of the association between aggression and literacy achievement increased over the elementary grades, the association between prosocial behavior and literacy achievement decreased. In addition, path analyses revealed that poor literacy achievement in the first and third grades predicted relatively high aggressive behavior in the third and fifth grades, respectively.     

Variables involved in personal, social and school adjustment in a sample of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds

The continuing incorporation of immigrant populations into the Spanish educational system poses an important challenge in that all participants must cooperate toward creating the best possible adaptation process at the academic level as well as on the personal and social levels. A number of different factors appear to influence children’s adjustment during the preschool stage, and these factors are especially relevant since many studies have shown that this is a key period for the prevention of future difficulties. The present study examines the variables involved in the adaptation of a group of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds in Spain. The results indicate that preschoolers, regardless of their background, have similar performance and learning potential, with language proficiency being the factor that most clearly affects the other variables investigated. It was also found that children’s attitudes toward learning were related to the presence of behavioral difficulties and with the quality and type of parental child-rearing practices. These practices appear to be related to a number of difficulties immigrant children may experience on personal and social levels.     

Reading collaborative reading partnerships in a school community

ABSTRACT

This article is an investigation into the Reading Partners scheme at a large inner London comprehensive school in England; this research comes from a small scale study I carried out as part of my Masters of Teaching at the Institute of Education, University College London. Reading Partners is a project whereby younger and older students within the secondary school education system are paired up to read aloud together in the school library every week over the course of a school year. The purpose of my study was to explore the relationships between these readers and to further understand what is gained from such shared reading. I argue that such collaborative reading aloud provides fertile ground for students’ development and that the sessions go beyond ‘just’ reading and, in fact, make reading become a ‘social’ activity. The significance of the personal relationship these students build and all that happens ‘beyond’ reading texts together should not be underestimated.     

A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback and of various peer feedback forms in a secondary school writing curriculum

This study examines whether peer feedback can be a substitute for teacher feedback and which measures can be taken to improve its effectiveness. A pre‐test post‐test control group design examined the long‐term learning effects of individual peer feedback and of collective teacher feedback on writing assignments in secondary education. Moreover, it examined the added value of a priori question forms and a posteriori reply forms aimed at supporting the assessee's response to peer feedback. The study supports the ‘non‐inferiority’ hypothesis of there being no significant difference in students’ progress after plain substitutional peer feedback or teacher feedback. Both groups (plain peer feedback and teacher feedback), however, improved significantly less than the groups that worked with question or reply forms, confirming the added‐value of these forms. Almost half of the students found the received peer feedback helpful, but less than a quarter considered giving feedback an aid in their own learning process.     

Walking through Walls: the sexual harassment of high school girls

For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. What has not been explored is the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and the way it interferes with young women's education. Equal opportunity programmes are of limited use if, for example, we urge female students into traditional male courses but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explored young women's experiences of sexual harassment in the setting lauded as their gateway to opportunity: school. Based on their testimonies I make recommendations for educators who are committed to making high school a more equitable place for female students.     

Discussion: modeling and maximizing peer effects in school

This chapter discusses issues that are common across the literatures and makes connections across the different levels of inquiry to develop a conceptual model of peer influences on learning. Based on the premise that compositional effects operate through a nested series of hierarchical layers, the chapter proposes a multi-layered model with effects propagating from school-level influences to class-level influences to group-level influences to ambient and configured environments for learning among peers. It is proposed that many of the effects are indirect. Hence, peer effects ‘look’ smaller the further we move away from the instructional coalface because they are mediated by intervening layers. It is also noted that there may be reciprocal effects whereby peers influence teachers and school organization and management. Finally, the chapter describes four instructional approaches that utilize peer resources to maximize learning. These approaches demonstrate additional ways of capitalizing on peer effects beyond altering student composition.     

Self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities in Norwegian secondary school

This article examines how the self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities is practised in secondary school in Norway and discusses possible challenges connected to this practice. The argumentation builds on the fieldwork of qualitative interviews (N?=?55) and participant observations in schools in Norway (pupils 13–16?years old). The pupils attend a variety of educational settings, including ordinary classes at mainstream schools, the department of special education at mainstream schools and special education schools. The study reveals considerable variations in the pupils’ opportunities to practise self-determination. While the self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities is rather extensive when it comes to their influence over informal and minor decisions in everyday life at school, it is very limited when it comes to formal and major decisions. Furthermore, the implementation of the pupils’ self-determination is primarily spontaneous and seldom anchored in the pupils’ Individual Education Plans. Such an implementation practice limits the pupils’ opportunities to participate in democratic processes, learning and social interaction.