Knowledge and attitudes of secondary school teachers regarding sexual health education in England

Objective To assess the sexual health knowledge of teachers who contribute to secondary school sexual health education in order to determine whether teachers are adequately prepared to implement present government education and public health policies.

Design Results were obtained from a questionnaire as part of a two‐phase intervention study.

Setting Nineteen mixed‐sex, state secondary schools in central England.

Participants One hundred and fifty‐five teachers (94 female, 61 male) participated.

Main outcome measures The questionnaires were distributed to teachers to assess their knowledge of sexual health, contraception and sexually transmitted infections. In addition, teachers' attitudes on the subject of sex and relationships education were evaluated.

Results The results suggest that teachers have insufficient sexual health knowledge to effectively teach sexually transmitted infections or emergency contraception, although their general sexual health knowledge was good. Therefore, at present teachers do not have adequate specialist knowledge in sexual health to contribute to current recommendations for sex and relationships education in secondary schools. There were no statistically significant differences in the results regarding location of school, area of residence, gender or age of the participant.

Conclusions Many teachers are being expected to contribute to secondary school sexual health education programmes at a time when they do not have sufficient knowledge to provide young people with adequate sexual health education and when they do not feel prepared to teach, and in many cases would prefer not to teach, these programmes.     

The ‘outdoor industry’ as social and educational phenomena: Gender and outdoor adventure/education

Abstract

This paper discusses social and cultural theory and tracts the ways in which gender has been conceptualised. It argues that the ‘outdoor industry’ in its various manifestations constitutes an aspect of society that can not be ignored. It suggests that outdoor adventure/education, like other dimensions of society, can usefully be subjected to critical examination. Having discussed perspectives surrounding the social construction of gender, the paper draws attention to classic work that has explored ideologies of femininity and the implication for women and men. The paper then goes on to argue that the more recent interactionist theories and cultural studies offer less deterministic and more insightful approaches to exploring people's experiences of outdoor adventure/education. The concept of hegemonic masculinity is drawn upon to examine ‘the outdoor industry’ in light of the current ‘crisis of masculinity’. Finally, the paper raises further questions regarding outdoor adventure/education as a site of alternative femininities and masculinities and as counter-culture.     

REDEFINING BUREAU EFFECTIVENESS

As central agencies for Jewish education face the year 2000, they must address both their past shortcomings, considering theme challenges for the future, and past successes which will require redefinition and reinvestment of human and financial resources for the future. The bureau movement would be well served in adopting Rav Kook's aphorism — “The Old Should be Renewed and the New Invested with Holiness” — as its motto.     

Mediating Roles of News Curation and News Elaboration in the Relationship between Social Media Use for News and Political Knowledge

Social media have opened up new possibilities for news engagement, and one of the important possibilities is news curation, which is defined as the reconstructing, reformulating, repurposing, reframing and sharing of news through social media. Focusing on this news curation concept, this study extends the Cognitive Mediation Model and the Communication Mediation Model (O-S-R-O-R) to the social media context. Drawing on a national survey of 1,135 South Korean adults, the present study finds that news elaboration and news curation are positively related to political knowledge and mediate the association between social media use for news and political knowledge.     

Web 2.0 Technologies and Back Channel Communication in an Online Learning Community

Communication, collaboration and community development are processes that contribute to student satisfaction and learning in online courses. This paper describes a study that investigated how campus and distance graduate students in a library science program communicated with one another outside the official boundaries of their courses. We conducted a survey to answer two research questions: 1) What Web 2.0 technologies do students use to communicate with one another outside of the formal structure of their online courses? and 2) What do they talk about in such communication? The results showed that, while students used a variety of technologies to communicate with one another, those enrolled at a distance made greater use of technology to communicate with one another. Moreover, clear preferences emerged according to age. Younger students preferred mobile technologies while older students experimented with a wider range of web-based technologies. We interpret these results and offer recommendations for practice based on our interpretation.     

Is tobacco use a problem among deaf college students?

College students' tobacco use poses a significant public health problem. Effective intervention requires understanding of this behavior among race/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic collegiate subgroups, including deaf and hard of hearing collegians. Findings from a first-ever tobacco-related survey among this understudied population are reported. The authors used written questionnaires and the Interactive Video Questionnaire, a multimedia computer technology developed for use with the deaf and hard of hearing, to interview 241 volunteers on seven California college campuses. They found lower self-reported current smoking prevalence (14.5%) relative to collegians in the general population, but considerable ever smoking (65.1%) and multiple types of tobacco use (37.3%). The authors report on factors associated with tobacco use and on students' exposure to cigarette marketing, gaps experienced in receipt of antitobacco messages and services, and students' antitobacco intervention recommendations. Limitations of the research are described, including possible underreporting of participants' tobacco use.     

Infants' developing appreciation of similarities between model objects and their real-world referents

Previous research suggests that model competence does not emerge until relatively late in infancy (20-26 months). Development was systematically analyzed within 3 key areas--count noun learning, dual representation, and categorization-hypothesized to support the emergence of model competence in the second year. In an object-handling preferential looking task, 21- to 26-month-olds matched model objects to referents only when count noun knowledge was high. When dual representation demands were reduced through the use of pictures in place of model objects, 20-month-olds with low count noun vocabularies succeeded in relating symbols to referents. Finally, change in infants' construal of a model object as a member of a category was documented between 14 and 20 months of age.     

Evaluation of the KA24 (Knowledge Access 24) service for health- and social-care staff in London and the south-east of England. Part 1: quantitative

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This two-part paper aims to identify the main transferable lessons learned from both the quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the Knowledge Access 24 (KA24) service of online databases and selected full-text journals for health and social care staff in London and the south-east of England. The quantitative evaluation analysed usage rates and user registration with the objective of measuring uptake by previously disadvantaged staff, and to inform the subsequent qualitative survey. METHODS: User and usage data were analysed by type of NHS Trust, by type of user, and by what was being used. The evaluation assessed development in user registration and usage of both databases and journals over a 2-year period. Data were aggregated and analysed both monthly and quarterly. RESULTS: Usage levels increased, but uptake in both the mental health and primary care sectors was comparatively slow. Nurses and allied professionals used the service more than doctors. The increase in usage of full-text journals over the usage of databases was marked. CONCLUSIONS: Previously disadvantaged staff used electronic resources. A qualitative survey was needed to identify the main enablers and barriers to uptake.