Cyberbullying victimisation and mental distress: testing the moderating role of attachment security,social support,and coping styles

Although it has been well established that cyberbullying leads to mental health problems, less is known about the factors that confer resilience to the adverse effects of cyberbullying among young people. To address this gap, adolescents aged 13–19 years (n = 476) completed a survey measuring cyberbullying victimisation, attachment styles, perceived social support, coping styles, and mental distress. Compared to non-victims, victims of cyberbullying experienced higher levels of depression and anxiety and endorsed more self-statements indicative of attachment anxiety. Peer support, security in attachment relationships, and the endorsement of positive coping strategies attenuated the positive relationship between cyberbullying victimisation and mental health difficulties. Family support did not appear to buffer adolescents from mental distress in this context. However, family support was the strongest bivariate predictor of reduced mental distress. Although peer relations should be the target of intervention programmes within school settings, the findings highlight the importance of including families in cyberbullying prevention programmes.     

Formative journeys of first-year college students: tensions and intersections with intercultural theory

Development of intercultural skills is recognized as an essential outcome of a college education, but in order to facilitate students' growth effectively, we must understand the points of the developmental journey at which students enter the college classroom. This study tests four hypotheses developed on the basis of leading models of intercultural development in relation to first-year students' levels of maturity, attitudes toward difference, capacity for productive interaction and emotions experienced in the face of difference. To test the hypotheses, we collected written narratives on a formative encounter with difference from 414 incoming students at the University of Minnesota. Each narrative was coded for an initial, intermediate or advanced stage of intercultural development, as well as for the outcomes of the interaction and emotions experienced in the course of the encounter. Findings indicate that: (1) only 21% of respondents display evidence of ethnorelative thinking; (2) the majority report very positive attitudes toward difference, but show evidence of veiled detachment and minimization; (3) there is no difference in reports of productive interaction between those who do and do not display mindfulness and (4) the emotions experienced at various stages of intercultural maturity do not yield a pattern of increasing comfort. We conclude that the points at which our students begin their intercultural journey may differ slightly from what is suggested by leading developmental models, and recommend adjusting the starting point of programming aimed at supporting intercultural competence development in college.     

Educating global citizens: a good ‘idea’ or an organisational practice?

Higher education emphasises training and skills for employment, yet while the ‘idea’ of educating global citizens appears in university discourse, there is limited evidence demonstrating how the ‘idea’ of the global citizen translates into practice. Recent research emphasises a desire for graduates to be local and global citizens with ethical and critical capacities for global workforce preparedness. The purpose of this paper is to explore the university responsibility for translating the ‘idea’ of the ethical thinking global citizen into practice. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with higher education experts (n?=?26). The interpretive research is discussed through the themes: Constructing the global citizen, Enacting the global citizen, Legitimating the global citizen and The sidelining context (italics used to distinguish research themes in text). The paper contributes to higher education discourse on a contested and topical issue.     

Sense about sex: media,sex advice,education and learning

The media are widely acknowledged as important in sex and relationship education, but they are usually associated with ‘bad’ effects on young people in contrast to the ‘good’ knowledge represented by more informational and educational formats. In this paper we look at sex advice giving in newspapers, magazines and television in the UK, in sex advice books and in online spaces for sexual learning. We examine some of the limitations of the information provided, consider the challenges for sex advice in the contemporary context, and outline some of the opportunities for academics, researchers, therapists, sex educators and activists to contribute productively to sex advice giving and sexual learning more generally.     

Promoting mental model building in astronomy education

While astronomy has recently re-emerged in many science curricula, there remain unresolved teaching and learning difficulties peculiar to astronomy education. This paper argues that mental model building, the core process in astronomy itself, should be reflected in astronomy education. Also, this crucial skill may promote a better understanding of the nature of science by pupils and it resonates with current understandings about pupils' learning in science. However, three practical questions to be considered are: the expressed reservations about the connection between mental model building and meaningful learning; the earliest age of pupils for whom mental model building is appropriate; and the lack of research into pupils' prior ideas about the role of models in science. The paper describes how a four-phase general pedagogical strategy was adopted to create an astronomy teaching and learning package to promote mental model building. The package consists of notes explaining the mental model building followed by an overview of the teaching-learning approach and suggested outlines of the 12 lessons. Research investigated whether that package can help Year 7-8 pupils interrogate and refine their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system within the constraints of an ordinary class of 33 pupils. The results showed that all four phases of the general strategy were necessary and effective in that most pupils were able successively and successfully to critique their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system while also achieving traditional astronomy knowledge goals. Implications are that pupils as young as Year 7-8 may be able to construct other appropriate mental models, such as those for biological populations, atomic structure and plate tectonics.     

Efficient literature searching in diffuse topics: lessons from a systematic review of research on communicating risk to patients in primary care

Using the example of communication about risk in a primary care setting, this paper puts forward a method of developing and evaluating a detailed search strategy for locating the literature for a systematic review of a ‘diffuse’ subject. The aim of this paper is to show how to develop a search strategy that maximizes both recall and precision while keeping search outputs manageable. Six different databases were used, namely Medline, Embase, PsychLIT, CancerLIT, Cinahl and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The searches were augmented by hand-searching, contacting authors, citation searching and reference lists from included papers. Other databases were searched but yielded no extra references for this subject matter. Of the 99 papers included, 80 were indexed on Medline. The Medline search strategy identified 54 of them and the remaining 26 were located on other databases. The 19 further unique references were found using the other databases and methods of retrieval. A combination of several databases must be used to maximize recall and to increase the precision of searches on individual databases, thus improving the overall efficiency of the search.     

Professionals and Moralists

This article explores a contrast between two differing approaches to spiritual and moral issues in schools. ‘Moralists’ such as Thomas Arnold (and his contemporary admirers) seek to transmit an authoritative tradition of belief and moral virtue. In contrast, ‘professionals’ take Socrates as their role model in these matters, and seek to promote in students critical and imaginative thinking, and a search for truth. It is argued that the second approach is the only one which does justice to our modern understanding of the limits of authoritative claims to moral truth. Recent policy statements concerning spiritual and moral values in schools are criticised from this perspective.     

How girls and boys expect disclosure about problems will make them feel: implications for friendships

Although girls disclose to friends about problems more than boys, little is known about processes underlying this sex difference. Four studies (Ns = 526, 567, 769, 154) tested whether middle childhood to mid-adolescent girls and boys (ranging from 8 to 17 years old) differ in how they expect that talking about problems would make them feel. Girls endorsed positive expectations (e.g., expecting to feel cared for, understood) more strongly than boys. Despite common perceptions, boys did not endorse negative expectations such as feeling embarrassed or worried about being made fun of more than girls. Instead, boys were more likely than girls to expect to feel "weird" and like they were wasting time. Sex differences in outcome expectations did help to account for girls' greater disclosure to friends.