Search

As a fundamental communication tool, media has undergone transformative changes throughout history. This has a lot to do with education. Each era has been characterized by its own unique media paradigms, from the invention of the printing press in the 15th century to the emergence of radio and television in the 20th century. These paradigms not only define how information is disseminated but also shape the social and political landscapes of their respective periods. In the modern age, the emergence of digital technology and the internet has brought about a new media paradigm that deeply influences every aspect of human interaction and the fabric of society. Today, new media, characterized by its interactivity, decentralization, and unprecedented access, dominates our daily lives. The significance of new media, which affects individual behaviors and global politics, economy, and cultures, cannot be underestimated. This process is also of great importance in terms of education. In particular, media literacy education will enable the individual to personally prepare for or otherwise intervene in the positive or negative aspects of their interaction with the media. From connecting distant communities to altering the dynamics of political campaigns, the impact of new media is ubiquitous. However, along with these advantages, new challenges have also emerged. One of the most concerning aspects of this shift in media is the potential for its exploitation by malicious groups, particularly evident in the rise of "terror agencies" utilizing new media platforms. These organizations adeptly employ new media tools for propaganda, recruitment, and operations, forming a symbiotic relationship that poses significant threats to global security. This article explores how new media paradigms enable the existence of terrorist organizations, the place of education in this regard, and what this complex relationship means for our interconnected world.

This study aims to reveal school principals' unethical behaviours based on teachers' perceptions within schools, to reveal the causes for these behaviours and recommendations to prevent them. An interpretive qualitative approach was applied. Data were gathered via face-to-face interviews conducted with 17 public school teachers in Kocaeli Province of Turkey. The data was examined through content analysis technique. The participants listed the unethical behaviours of school principals in seven different themes as discrimination, favouritism, violation of the rules of courtesy, misconduct, mobbing and pressure, neglect of duty, and other behaviours. The causes of unethical behaviours of school principals were stated as the factors related to administrative qualifications, personal factors, institutional factors, the factors related to teachers, and environmental factors. To prevent unethical behaviours of school principals, the participants suggested some training activities as post-graduate education in educational administration and psychological guidance to school principals. They also suggested some activities to increase the professional development levels and human relations competences of school principals. It was also recommended to make some legal regulations regarding the appointment, assignment issues, reward, rotation, and supervision of administrators. In addition to these suggestions, it was recommended to organize social activities for preventing unethical behaviours of school principals.

Gambling disorder is a dramatic phenomenon that is spreading, in Italy as well as around the world, among younger and younger people every year. Activities in mathematics lessons at school can help pre-vent it, but it is necessary to know with which attitudes and beliefs students approach such mathematics lessons, as well as the role of the social environment. Thus, in this study, within a sample of secondary school students who experienced gambling at various levels of addiction (from none to high), we investigate the role of: mathematics-related beliefs, emotions, social relationships, attitudes towards gambling and behaviour, through a set of calibrated self-report multiple-choice questionnaires. This represents for us an opportunity to understand the complex relations among affective variables in mathematics educational activities aimed at preventing gambling disorder. For example, we found a positive correlation between mathematics-related beliefs and gambling frequency, and a negative correlation between emotional regulation and gambling frequency. Hence, we can say that affective variables such as emotions and beliefs have an effect on gambling behavior.

This quantitative study is designed to help educational institutions and instructors make informed decisions regarding the use of online proctoring software. The researchers studied the impact of proctoring software in online courses by comparing the final grades of two groups of online, undergraduate students who took the same online course with the same professor who administered virtually the same content, with and without proctoring software. The overall sample included 252 students in six different undergraduate courses. When regressing all six courses together, the data did not show that the addition of proctoring software created a significantly lower course grade. The researchers then regressed the data of each individual undergraduate course, with the addition of independent variables, which had a mixed-bag of results. Interestingly, an undergraduate business course showed that the use of proctoring software reduced course grades while other courses produced interesting significant findings relative to gender and attendance status.

We explored secondary school principals' knowledge of suicide prevention programs, their perceptions of the logistical and cultural barriers associated with suicide prevention program adoption, and their justification for adopting (or not adopting) suicide prevention programs in their schools. Principals, as positional leaders of schools, can lead the adoption and support of school-based suicide prevention programs for their students. Using a phenomenology framework, we conducted semi-structured interviews of eight secondary school principals working in public schools in the south-central United States. The principals readily identified the importance of supporting students' mental health to enhance their learning as a justification for implementing suicide prevention programs for their students. They shared how limited staffing, time, perception of school responsibility for student mental health, and lack of knowledge of available suicide prevention resources were logistical, cultural, and knowledge barriers to adopting suicide prevention programs for students. Our research has profound implications for practice.

African Americans (AAs) are disproportionately burdened with diabetes and prediabetes. Predominately AA churches may be optimal settings for reaching AAs at greatest diabetes risk, along with related morbidities and mortalities. The current study used the RE-AIM framework to qualitatively examine the feasibility, acceptability, and satisfaction with the Project Faith Influencing Transformation (FIT) intervention, a diabetes risk reduction intervention in AA churches. Participants were (N = 21) church and community members who also participated in the larger Project FIT intervention and were primarily female, with an average age of 60 years (SD = 11.1). Participants completed a brief survey and focus group discussion. Participants discussed intervention effectiveness in changing health behaviors and outcomes, with high rates of adoption, acceptability, and satisfaction across churches that conducted the intervention. Participants also discussed outreach to members of the broader community, the role of the pastor, and challenges to intervention implementation and maintenance-tailored strategies to improve intervention effectiveness are discussed. Given the significant diabetes disparities that exist for AAs, it is imperative to continue to investigate best practices for reaching communities served by churches with sustainable, relevant health programming. This study has the potential to inform more effective, tailored diabetes prevention interventions for high-risk AAs in faith-based settings.

When teaching infection prevention and control (IPC), nursing education tends to focus on skills and fostering good practice rather than challenging students' thinking. Therefore, students' misconceptions about IPC receive less attention than they deserve. The purpose of the study was to make an inventory of student nurses' misconceptions about IPC before instruction and to make these misconceptions visible to teachers. The study was conducted in one vocational institute in Finland and is based on the answers of 29 practical nurse students before IPC training. The students took an online test requiring them to justify their answers to two multiple-true--false questions: 1) What is the main route of transmission between patients in healthcare facilities, and 2) What is the most effective and easiest manner to prevent the spreading of pathogens, e.g., multi-resistant bacteria in long-term care facilities? Analysis of the students' written justifications resulted in three mental models: 1) the Household Hygiene Model manifesting lay knowledge learned in domestic situations, 2) the Mixed Model consisting of lay knowledge, enriched with some professional knowledge of IPC, and 3) the Transmission Model manifesting a professional understanding of IPC. The first two mental models were considered to be misconceptions. Only one of the participants showed a professional understanding (i.e., the Transmission Model). To conclude, student nurses manifested systematic patterns of misconceptions before instruction. Unless the students are confronted with their misconceptions of IPC during instruction, it is likely that these misconceptions will impede their learning or make learning outcomes transient.

Young adult refugees have suboptimal primary care use, including having a regular provider and engaging with a regular source of care for primary and preventive healthcare needs. Our purpose was to understand how young adult refugees (ages 18-29 years) resettled to the United States understand and experience primary care. We conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with young adult refugees and explored their ideas about and experiences of key characteristics of primary care. Emergent themes were synthesized. Young adult refugees reported a lack of an understanding of the idea of primary care. However, they also described the lack of accepted key components of primary care, such as being the first contact and providing continuity, coordination and comprehensiveness. The importance of developing an ability to ask questions, get answers and feel empowered was a facilitator of primary care successes. Young refugees lack access to healthcare that exemplifies quality primary care. Improving understanding of the primary care model and its value as well as increasing access and ease of engagement could improve primary care engagement for young adult refugees.

Mental health during childhood is a growing social challenge with important implications for optimal development. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) interventions have been shown to prevent problems related to psychological maladjustment, as well as promote emotional well-being. This article aims to provide evidence for the impact of RULER (Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, Regulating), an evidence-based approach to SEL, on students' mental health outcomes in Spanish public schools. A total of 207 primary school students (50.24% girls, mean age of 9 years) participated in the study. The teachers in the intervention school as compared to the control school received RULER instruction consisting of 15 hours of professional development training, 3 hours of follow-up, and SEL implementation guidelines throughout the school year. Students completed the Behavior Assessment System (BASC S-2). Results showed significant impacts in the RULER as compared to control school, including a reduction of clinical symptoms, such as anxiety and atypicality, as well as emotional symptoms, such as the sense of inadequacy among 9 to 12 year old students. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The manipulated or manufactured truth on social media platforms spreads false information to influence netizens' cognition, often resulting in fabricated social and political narratives. This study systematically reviews the literature on truth manipulation and its impact on the cognition of social media users. The primary focus is on disinformation, misinformation, fake news, and propaganda. The study appraises 162 peer-reviewed publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database using the systematic review method. The data was put through a bibliometric analysis to unpack the evolutionary nuances of netizens' cognitive response to manufactured truth, informativity, and manipulation on social media. The study highlights emerging trends and issues from truth manipulation on social media. The bibliometric analysis reveals since 2017, there has been an increase in the trend of scholarly work about truth manipulation on social media and its effects on the cognition of netizens. The USA seems to be the most prominent node to contribute to the study of truth manipulation. The content analysis shows multiple aspects causing truth manipulation. This study also seeks ways and methods to prevent and counter truth manipulation on social media. It looks at the possibilities of altering netizens' cognitive abilities by improving their critical social media literacies through fact-checking. The study results show that knowledge gaps persist in truth manipulation on social media and the cognitional aspects in response to fabricated narratives. We emphasize the importance of further investigations in this domain.

In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine the views and suggestions of communication faculty academics about how they behaved against digital violence. The data were analyzed qualitatively by inductive technique. According to the results obtained in the research, the majority of the participants stated that they encountered harassment on social networking sites, and the desire to communicate with fake social media accounts caused the participants to worry. On the other hand, participants who faced threats from social media found a solution by complaining about individuals who used digital violence on the sharing site. Participants who faced digital violence tried to prevent digital violence by taking legal action. In cases of encountering digital violence on social media, they filed a criminal complaint with the police department and stated that a new legal department should be opened by the participants and emphasized that the digital violence unit should be opened in order to prevent digital violence. According to the results obtained in the research, the majority of the participants stated that they encountered harassment on social networking sites, and the desire to communicate with fake social media accounts caused the participants to worry. On the other hand, the participants, who faced threats from social media, found a solution by complaining about individuals who used digital violence on the sharing site. Another result obtained from the research is that the participants who encountered digital violence tried to prevent digital violence by resorting to legal means. He made a criminal complaint to the police department about the situations of encountering digital violence on social media and stated that the participants should open a new legal department and emphasized that the digital violence unit should be opened in order to prevent digital violence of the participants.

This research utilizes a unique, validated, multiple-choice exam design that allows researchers to observe and measure the degree to which students copy answers from their peers. Using data collected from the exam, this study investigates whether asking students to sign an honor code at the start of the exam reduced instances of cheating relative to a control group. Empirical results demonstrate that the classroom of students who signed the honor code had less overall copying of answers and also fewer individual students who engaged in cheating. This study contributes to the literature by conducting analysis on a sample that measures actual cheating frequency, as opposed to relying on reported cheating in surveys, and by demonstrating that a positive intervention can effectively discourage unethical behavior.

African countries experience a lot of recurring conflicts because the underlying causes of most conflicts on the continent have either been unresolved or tackled at the surface level. This situation leads to the loss of lives and property. Ghana's National Peace Council (NPC) is one of the existing peace infrastructures whose mandate is to educate the public on peace and conflict management. However, there is a paucity of literature on how this peace council educates the Ghanaian population on peacebuilding. The study, therefore, sought to uncover strategies employed by Ghana's NPC in educating the public on peacebuilding. Data was gathered through interviews and focused group discussions with participants who work with the NPC. The study also relied on secondary data, which consisted of recordings of peace education programmes through mass media such as TV and radio. The findings revealed that two main strategies are employed by the NPC of Ghana, namely, the use of media platforms (TV and radio) and socio-entertaining strategies. In addition to traditional media, this study argues that the NPC should utilise modern media, such as social media and the Internet, for peace education. If utilised, these two media forms would reach a much larger audience and could be used to prevent conflict in Ghana.social medi

As newly qualified teachers begin their teaching career, the first year can be a challenging one where they need to learn new skills and handle many stresses, including classroom management. Managing the class in order to teach is a challenging skill for newly qualified teachers. This study investigated 156 primary school teachers who are based in New South Wales, Australia, in their first year of teaching and their classroom management strategies. The results showed that newly qualified teachers frequently employ rewards, preventative strategies, differentiated strategies, and low-level corrective approaches. They were most confident using rewards and preventative strategies. Furthermore, they found that low-level correction strategies were not as effective as other strategies, such as rewards, prevention, and differentiated approaches. As new teachers transition from pre-service into in-service teachers, it is important to support them and provide appropriate professional development opportunities.

In spring 2021, we taught a course called Honors White Supremacy and Privilege to university honors students at our higher education institution in Florida. Aimed at helping students process intellectually the Black Lives Matter events of the preceding year, the course took place just as a reaction was gathering momentum against anti-racist teaching. We present the materials used in the 1-credit course and contextualize the experience in ongoing Republican legislative efforts, particularly in Florida, to undermine the ability to teach courses like this. Much of the essay addresses the lessons we took away from the reading material and classroom discussions. These include the non-essentialism of race, the benchmark "normality" of whiteness, the material consequences of white supremacy, connections of the Trump presidency to a history of white supremacy, the recurring reactionary responses to challenges to the racial status quo, and the need to teach about white supremacy and privilege.

Student bullying behaviours are a significant social issue in schools worldwide. Whilst school staff have access to quality bullying prevention interventions, schools can face significant challenges implementing the whole-school approach required to address the complexity of these behaviours. This study aimed to understand how schools' capacity to implement whole-school bullying prevention interventions could be strengthened to promote sustainability and improve student outcomes. Qualitative methods were used to observe schools over time to gain insight into their implementation capacity to improve student social and emotional wellbeing and prevent and ameliorate harm from bullying. A four-year longitudinal, multi-site case study intensively followed eight schools' implementation of "Friendly Schools," an Australian evidenced-based whole-school bullying prevention intervention. Regular in-depth interviews with school leaders and implementation teams over four years led to the refinement of a staged-implementation process and capacity building tools and revealed four common drivers of implementation quality: (1) strong, committed leadership; (2) organisational structures, processes and resources; (3) staff competencies and commitment; and (4) translating evidence into local school policy and practice. This paper considers the strengths of qualitative data in understanding how and why bullying prevention interventions work as well as actions schools can take to enhance their implementation and sustainability of complex social interventions.

While gatekeeper trainings have demonstrated their effectiveness in appraisals of preparedness, efficacy, and intention to intervene, evidence has been lacking regarding gatekeeper behaviors in real life. The I CARE training aims to increase intervention in real-world situations involving suicidality through informational and experiential learning, enhanced by emotional support and guidance from counseling center facilitators. In mixed-method follow-up assessments, respondents reported utilizing specific skills they learned during the training, noting their ability to listen, ask directly about suicidality, connect others with services, and draw on a variety of supportive resources. Of those who encountered a potentially suicidal student, two-thirds asked the student if they were thinking of hurting or killing themselves; others reported taking preventive actions. Perceived support and gatekeeper outcomes were correlated. The findings affirm the effectiveness of communal efforts to support college students' mental health and suggest ways to enhance effective intervention in actual situations with students in distress.

Sexual assault is a pervasive problem that has devastating consequences for college students. California's legislation stipulates that public colleges and universities must define sexual misconduct and sexual consent as well as provide ongoing sexual assault prevention education on campus. Despite these efforts, little is known about how well students understand consent or whether their knowledge differs by gender identity and sexual orientation. To address this gap, we collected data from 291 students attending a public university in Northern California and found that most (presumably well-informed) students had only cursory understandings of consent. We argue that colleges and universities need to do more to provide gender and sexual-orientation informed, creative, interactive and context-based approaches to consent education. Additionally, consent education should be tailored to the unique needs of specific subgroups, including cisgender heterosexual men and asexual students who had the lowest level of consent understanding in this study. Such an approach is needed to support college students to enjoy mutually respectful, fulfilling, and fun sexual and romantic relationships.

Mothers continue to be a major source of sex education for their children. This study explored the attitudes and practices of internally displaced mothers in providing sex-related education to their children in a camp settlement in Nigeria. A qualitative approach was used, and data were elicited from women in three focus group discussions. A thematic approach was adopted for data analysis. Mothers had a positive attitude towards the provision of sex education, primarily to the female child. The content of sex education as they understood included health and hygiene, changes in the reproductive health system, and susceptibility to reproductive tract infections, while they excluded education on nutrition and the art of sex. Despite reports of sexual and gender-based violence in the camps, less information was provided to the children on prevention and options for care. Mothers' delivery of sex education seemed affected by their level of education and multiple socio-cultural factors. Overall, there were gaps in the provision of sex-related education to the children of internally displaced mothers in Benue State. There is an urgent need to improve access to sex educational content while empowering mothers with strategies to facilitate the provision of age-appropriate sex education in these settlements.

This paper explores teenage girls' responses to general advice, and formal prevention messages, designed to reduce sexting-related risk and prevent harm. We conducted workshops with seven groups of girls (28 in total), aged 16-17 years, in a New Zealand city. Each group participated in a series of three workshop sessions. Drawing on a Freirean 'problem-posing' approach, we designed the workshops as spaces in which girls were invited to observe and critically discuss norms related to sharing nudes as well as harm prevention messages. Girls noticed the problematic gender and sexual politics that shape abstinence-based models that target girls (implicitly) to not send nudes, but which leave boys who distribute or otherwise misuse them out of the picture. Participants navigated a careful path between attending to risk and protection on the one hand, and endorsing their right to freedom of expression on the other. We argue for a subtle, but significant, shift away from a focus on sexting safety to a focus on the prevention of image-based sexual coercion, harassment and abuse. This reframing would help to direct prevention efforts to the gendered drivers and dynamics of harm perpetration, and the ways in which they are problematically socially ignored or condoned.

Peer victimization in schools most often occurs in the presence of bystanders. When bystanders intervene on behalf of the victims, they are often successful in stopping the victimization. Defender self-efficacy (i.e., the belief in one's ability to successfully defend victims) has consistently been associated with greater defending and less passive bystanding in peer victimization. However, the lack of longitudinal research designs has resulted in a limited understanding of how these relationships develop over time. This five-wave longitudinal study involving 2507 Swedish students addressed this gap by examining longitudinal associations of defender self-efficacy with defending and passive bystanding. Participating students answered a self-report questionnaire once a year, from fourth to eighth grade. Our findings provide partial evidence for reciprocal associations among the variables. Moreover, there were more significant associations in the traditional than in the random intercept model, thus favoring between-person interpretations of the longitudinal associations. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the link between defender self-efficacy and bystander behavior of peer victimization, and that schools in their efforts in preventing school violence and bullying support students in increasing their defender self-efficacy and capacity in defending.

Two years ago, I began a project based on the question, "If online platforms are providing more access for hate groups to recruit and radicalize members, then is it possible to use online platforms to combat discrimination, racism, and hatred?" Educating public audiences and promoting positive social change were laudable goals, but this article explores the idea of "how" this was done in ethical ways. There were challenges encountered "along the way" when attempting to create a project from personal stories, including issues of ethical storytelling, respectful data management, community engagement with marginalized communities, complications of "going viral," and more. In this article, I document the process of how four anti-racist videos were created, some of the challenges encountered along the way, methodological maneuvers, and suggestions for further methodological and ethical consideration. I explore two levels of analysis. First, by looking at methodological considerations, I detail the importance of community consultation, the need for research findings to be accessible, useful, and meaningful to the community, and how the decisions and planning around "going viral," were further complicated by funder requirements and other ethical considerations. At the second level of analysis, I use autoethnography to explore how my own positionality factored into decisions about the project.

Concussion education is widely mandated and largely ineffective. Recent consensus guidance on concussion education asserts the importance of (1) theory-driven programming that targets the team as a system and (2) working with end users throughout the development process, and considering issues such as feasibility, acceptability, and sustainability. Consistent with this guidance, and in collaboration with youth sport stakeholders in two regions of the United States, we developed a novel approach to concussion education: Pre-game safety huddles. Safety huddles have the following two core components: (1) athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders come together before the start of each game and (2) opinion leaders (coaches, referees) affirm the importance of care seeking for suspected concussion. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the collaborative process through which we refined the safety huddle concept into an acceptable and feasible intervention with potential for sustainable implementation in diverse youth sports settings with minimal resource demands. In describing our process and discussing challenges and opportunities, we hope to provide an example for others seeking to develop and implement injury prevention interventions in youth sports settings.

This essay details research into feminist digital activism in the Australian context through analysing the themes that emerged from the Teach Us Consent website. It provides a preliminary analysis of its contents as a means to continue and deepen the conversation around issues of gender, consent, and the education system. It also examines the difficulties and potentials of this digital type of feminist activism and research while highlighting the importance of technology as a 'testimonial space' [Gilmore 2017. "Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say About Their Lives." New York: Columbia University Press, 159].

Prior research about pupil welfare teams have identified problems at several levels: those of leadership, interprofessional cooperation, cooperation between the pupil welfare team and teachers, and type of work carried out. Perhaps most importantly, teams seem to work primarily with 'firefighting', i.e. acting reactively when problems already have occurred, rather than in a health promoting and preventive way. On the one hand, health promotion and prevention are endorsed as desired ways to work (e.g. SFS 2010, 800); on the other hand, reactive measures seem to dominate in practice. In order to try to bridge this gap, we carried out a study of a pupil welfare team in Sweden that we had reason to believe worked more in line with the health-promoting and preventive manner of working that is recommended. Since we could not know a priori whether the team studied worked in a qualitatively different way than other teams studied in prior research, we were led by two overarching research questions: (1) Is the studied team working in a heath promoting and preventive way? and (2) If so, how did their way of working emerge and how is it sustained? Our overriding purpose is to increase our knowledge concerning whether and how pupil welfare teams can become more health promoting and preventive in practice. More specifically, we are interested to find factors that contribute to the development and sustainability of health promoting and preventive work in pupil welfare teams.

To understand the role of different school-wide practices in school-wide bullying prevention in the global context, this present study was guided by the social-ecological framework to examine cross-country similarities and differences in the association between three forms of school-wide practices (i.e., punitive, positive, and social and emotional learning [SEL] practices) and school-wide bullying between United States (n = 1,833) and Chinese (n = 1,627) teachers from middle and high schools. Measurement invariance tests confirmed that the associations between the three forms of school-wide practices and school-wide bullying were comparable across the two countries. Results of multilevel analyses suggested that more frequent positive practices at the between-school level were associated with increased school-wide bullying in the United States but decreased school-wide bullying in the Chinese. Also, more frequent punitive practices at the within-school level were associated with increased school-wide bullying in both the U.S. and Chinese samples, and this positive association between punitive practices and school-wide bullying was significantly stronger in the Chinese sample than in the U.S. sample. More frequent punitive practices at the between-school level were also associated with increased school-wide bullying in the U.S. sample, but not in the Chinese sample. Moreover, the frequent SEL practices at the within-school level were significantly associated with decreased school-wide bullying in the United States, but not in China; the frequent SEL practices at the between-school level were associated with decreased school-wide bullying in the United States but increased school-wide bullying in China. Implications for school-wide practices in bullying prevention and intervention with sociocultural considerations were discussed.

Background: Suicide is a leading cause of death for adolescents, and school connectedness is a potential, modifiable protective factor for suicide. We sought to examine if school connectedness protected against suicide among high school students and if potential moderators affected the relationship between school connectedness and suicide. Methods: We searched online databases (PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO) on December 12, 2021, for studies that examined the effects of school connectedness on suicide among high school students. Results: This systematic review identified 34 studies that examined the effects of school connectedness on adolescent suicidality. Results indicated mixed findings of school connectedness on suicidality. Among studies that assessed a suicide ideation outcome, 73.3% found that school connectedness protected against suicide. Among studies that assessed a suicide attempts outcome, 50% found that school connectedness protected against suicide. Most included studies did not control for notable variables in their final models, such as sleep, impulsivity, substance use, or depression. No studies examined moderators of school connectedness and suicide. Conclusions: School connectedness is somewhat protective of suicidality, and more protective of suicidal ideation than suicide attempts. Researchers should examine the construct of school connectedness among modern youth to better understand school connectedness and suicide.

Despite the fact that schools remain incredibly safe spaces for children and youth to spend time, the occurrence of mass school shootings, although rare, is a pressing issue for our society. In this paper we discuss the importance of action, advocacy, and research related to mass school shootings. Specifically, we discuss research-based actions for preventing and responding to mass school shootings, including multi-tiered systems of support, positive behavior interventions and supports, threat assessment, and trauma-informed care. In regard to advocacy, we focus on the need to discontinue ineffective and, in some cases, harmful practices such as zero-tolerance policies. We conclude with an examination of the needed research in this area, with special attention on the use of active shooter drills and firearm legislation.

Introduction: Cervical cancer is a preventable yet highly prevalent disease in Africa. Despite female adolescents and young women being a target group for cervical cancer prevention strategies, little research has examined their knowledge of how to prevent the disease. The study aimed to describe: (a) knowledge about cervical cancer prevention and (b) sociodemographic, social, and systemic factors associated with and interacting with knowledge among female senior high school students in Ghana. Methods: A cross-sectional survey assessed knowledge about (a) risk factors and (b) primary and secondary prevention of cervical cancer among 2,400 female students from 17 public senior high schools in the Ashanti region, Ghana. Descriptive statistics were used to describe knowledge. Linear mixed-effects regression models were used to examine factors associated with knowledge scores. Results: Knowledge gaps were observed for at least two-thirds (>65%) of students. Most students (mean age = 17) did not know that early sexual debut (before 18 years) is a risk factor for cervical cancer (72%) and that a blood test cannot detect cervical cancer (71%). Students in later stages of senior high school education and those who received sexual health education from teachers and parents had significantly greater cervical cancer knowledge scores than their counterparts. Interactive effects showed that school-based sexual health education was associated with higher knowledge scores than home-based education among students. Conclusions: Most female senior high school students had gaps in knowledge about cervical cancer prevention. Finding new ways to strengthen the capacity of schools and parents to deliver accurate cervical cancer prevention information is warranted.

The Recipe 4 Success preventive intervention targeted multiple factors critical to the health and well-being of toddlers living in poverty. This randomized controlled trial, which was embedded within Early Head Start home visits for 12 weeks, included 242 racially and ethnically diverse families (51% girls; toddler mean age = 2.58 years; data collected 2016-2019). Compared to parents in usual practice home visits, parents in Recipe 4 Success displayed greater sensitive scaffolding of toddlers' learning and more responsive food parenting practices (Cohen's d = 0.21-0.30). Toddlers in Recipe 4 Success exhibited greater self-regulation and had healthier eating habits (Cohen's d = |0.16-0.35|). Results highlight the value of Recipe 4 Success in promoting parent and toddler behavior change that could have life-long benefits.

Devastating school shootings have spawned a cottage industry of untested responses to school violence. Some involve target hardening, or making schools less vulnerable to violent attacks. School administrators and community members can be quick to gravitate towards target hardening measures for preventing school violence. However, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is more consistent with best practices in school safety and may be linked to more positive student perceptions of school climate. The CPTED principle of natural surveillance implies that individuals will be less likely to commit crimes, infractions, and offenses if their behavior can be observed and reported. This involves having an open campus layout that provides clear sight lines to continually monitor shared spaces such as courtyards, playgrounds, cafeterias, and libraries. Based on the available research, CPTED school-based designs may offer some benefits without drawbacks. School psychologists can be involved in discussions about school design in multiple ways CPTED is an alternative approach to school safety that may evenly balance the need for physical safety with psychological comfort. Although school psychologists do not draft blueprints for school design, they can work with administrators, community stakeholders, and policy makers to advocate for ground-up strategies for healthy schools - not fortresses.

In Portugal, early childhood education and care services for children under-three were the first educational services to reopen after periods of lockdown. COVID-19 prevention and control measures had to be implemented nationwide, but no knowledge was yet produced on their impact in educational settings. This study aimed to map the implementation of COVID-19 prevention and control measures and examine associations among prevention and control measures, perceived changes to pedagogical practices and children's well-being in early childhood education and care services for children under three. In this study, 1098 early childhood education and care professionals from all districts completed an online survey during January and February 2021. Results indicated that prevention and control measures were widely implemented. Furthermore, early childhood education and care professionals who started to implement prevention and control measures more frequently were more likely to perceive a reinforcement of their pedagogical practices at the level of adult-child interaction, emotional climate, and interaction with families, and reported higher levels of children's well-being. Findings highlighted the potential role of pedagogical practices in mitigating the effects of COVID-19 in early childhood education and care services for children under-three.

This qualitative study used BlackCrit theory to elucidate how white supremacist thinking plays out in Black teachers' perceptions of and practices with students with chronic disciplinary patterns. Black teachers' perceptions of Black students are critical to understand because Black students experience disciplinary actions, classroom push-outs, and special education referrals at a disproportionate rate. Internalized racism and racial battle fatigue are consequences of racism experienced by Black educators. Their daily experiences with racism impact how they interact with and view their Black students.

There is a public health epidemic in adolescents' use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDSs), also known as electronic cigarettes, vaping products, or JUULs. However, little is known about the level of knowledge school staff have about ENDS. The purpose of this study is to examine outcomes of a nurse-led educational intervention designed to increase school staff knowledge about ENDS. A descriptive, nonrandomly selected pre-test/post-test design was used with 125 Wisconsin school staff. Results revealed further educational needs of school staff in content areas including advertising to youth and flavoring of ENDS. Following the educational intervention, post-test results showed a significant overall improvement in participant knowledge scores. Recommendations include implementing nurse-led education about ENDS to a more diverse population of school staff. Providing nurse-led ENDS education to school staff offers an upstream, proactive approach for school nurses to help address this public health epidemic.

The present qualitative study is a part of the process evaluation of a complex intervention, the randomized controlled trial, "Prevention of human papillomavirus (HPV) in a school-based setting." We aimed to explore participating school nurses' perceptions and experiences of delivering the educational HPV intervention to adolescents aged 16. Focus group interviews were conducted with school nurses (n = 20) and analyzed with inductive qualitative content analysis. The overall theme Easily adapted into the existing role as a school nurse permeated the participants' views. The nurses were in favor of delivering an intervention that increased the HPV vaccination rates and improved beliefs and awareness about HPV prevention. It suits their work and health-promoting aspect of their role well and can easily be adapted into the current school health consultant curriculum. Having material in different languages to share with adolescents and their parents to promote equal health was deemed important.

Most people start experimenting with and/or initiating health-compromising behaviors and establishing behavioral patterns during adolescence. Possible selves and episodic future thinking have been used to foster behavioral changes. In this study, we aimed to: (1) develop a program incorporating possible selves and episodic future thinking to decrease the risks associated with health-compromising behaviors, and (2) examine the feasibility and fidelity of implementing this intervention among Taiwanese adolescents. A novel combination of existing intervention approaches tailored for the Taiwanese context was applied to develop a school-based intervention, which we named the Future Mapping Master program. This program contains four core units: exploring the self, setting goals, developing strategies and problem solving, and understanding the threats of health-compromising behaviors. It includes daily episodic future thinking visualization exercises. The feasibility evaluation was conducted with 88 adolescents aged 12-14 years. Feedback from teachers and students supported the proposed program's feasibility and revealed favorable reactions to the intervention. The Future Mapping Master program is feasible and offers promising strategies for implementation in Taiwanese school settings.

Objective: Participating in an escape room is not just an entertainment but can also be a form of education. Because of this, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH), Project Firstline (PFL) created an escape room interactive training tool and skills-building exercise to encourage the identification and use of key infection control principles by current and future healthcare workers. Design and Setting: PFL is a US initiative that aims to provide infection prevention and control (IPC) knowledge to frontline healthcare workers. This article details health educators' descriptions and experiences of an escape room developed as part of this initiative; guidance on how to incorporate this modality of learning into present and future teaching; and assessment data and feedback from participants to begin to understand the impact and effectiveness of this approach to learning. Methods: A total of 8 sessions, conducted in 3 locations, with 64 participants, yielded survey assessment data from 41 participants. Results: Quantitative results indicated that participants were highly satisfied with the escape room experience and reported an increased level of knowledge after participation. In addition, participants reported extremely high levels of intention to implement the training they received, and all would recommend the escape room experience to a friend or a colleague. Qualitative data supports the overall findings and provides specific examples of how participants said they would implement the knowledge they learned, along with additional positive feedback. Conclusion: Current and continuing efforts to promote PFL's escape room are described, along with improvements and future actions.

Suicide has been identified as the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the USA. Although neighborhood violence has also been identified as a major public health issue, few studies have examined the association between exposure to neighborhood violence and suicidal behaviors among adolescents using a large nationally representative sample. Guided by the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, this study examined the cross-sectional association between exposure to neighborhood violence and suicidal behaviors among adolescents. Data for this study came from the 2021 Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (n = 7663, 52.1% Female). The outcome variables investigated in this study were suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, and the main explanatory variable was exposure to neighborhood violence. Data were analyzed using sequential hierarchical binary logistic regression. Of the 7663 adolescents examined, 20.1% experienced suicidal ideation and 8.9% attempted suicide at least once during the past 12 months. About 21% of the adolescents reported being exposed to neighborhood violence. Controlling for other factors, we found that exposure to neighborhood violence was associated with 1.38 times higher odds of making suicide attempts (AOR = 1.38, p = 0.029, 95% CI 1.04-1.84). The findings of this study could inform clinicians, practitioners, and school counselors on how to identify adolescents who may be particularly at risk of suicide attempts and focus efforts on prevention.

We investigated the longitudinal associations among maternal pre- and postnatal depression, maternal anxiety, and children's language and cognitive development followed from 15 to 61 months. Furthermore, we assessed the protective role of children's early print experiences with books against the adverse effect of maternal depression on language development. Data for mothers and children (51.7% boys, 95% White, N = 11,662) were from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Prenatal maternal depression held an adverse association with child language ([beta] = -0.16, p = 0.002). Moreover, the risk was greater for girls than boys ([beta] = 0.19, p = 0.02). In addition, prenatal depression was significantly and negatively associated with child verbal intelligence quotient ([beta] = -0.11, p = 0.02) and performance intelligence quotient ([beta] = -0.12, p = 0.01). In contrast, postnatal depression or anxiety were not unique predictors of child outcomes. Importantly, children's early experiences with books, as measured by the reported frequency of parent-child shared reading, moderated the negative association between maternal depression and child language development ([beta] = 0.30, p < 0.001). Although modest in size, these findings inform models of child risk and resilience related to maternal psychopathology. The results also have implications for clinical programs as well as for prevention and intervention studies focusing on at-home early literacy.

Many refugee children experience trauma in early childhood. Effective, tailored interventions are needed to improve refugee children's access to preventive mental health. We interviewed refugee-serving stakeholders and parents participating in an evidence-based preventive mental health and wellness intervention adapted for Afghan refugee children and families who may have experienced trauma. Interview guide development was informed by two implementation science frameworks: the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and the Model for Adaptation Design and Impact. A three-person team coded transcripts via rapid qualitative analysis, and the study team reached consensus on themes. Six refugee-serving facilitators and five refugee parents discussed key determinants of successful implementation. Themes included: (i) modeling cultural humility to promote communication about emotions; (ii) needed linguistic support and referral networks to avoid miscommunications and missed communications; (iii) bridging connections between children, families and schools; (iv) different takeaways, or differing goals and expectations between facilitators and participants; and (v) timely, specific cultural considerations to overcome participation barriers. Overall, we found key determinants of successful implementation of a preventive mental health and wellness intervention for refugee children and families included adaptations to enhance cultural humility and sensitivity to cultural context while strengthening communication among facilitators, children and families.

Developing self-care behaviors is a fundamental yet challenging strategy to prevent the complications of diabetes. This three-arm randomized controlled trial aimed to compare the effectiveness of combined mindfulness and self-regulation-based intervention with self-regulation-based intervention on self-care behaviors of Iranian older adults with diabetes in 2021-2022. Three public diabetic clinics were randomly assigned to three study groups and then 45 participants were randomly recruited from every clinic. 24-week educational interventions via WhatsApp included a self-regulation-based intervention (SRIP), a combined mindfulness and self-regulation intervention (CMSRIP), and routine care with training on COVID-19 prevention were performed in two intervention groups and a control group respectively. Data were collected at baseline and four and 16 weeks using a Mindfulness-based questionnaire (MSCS) and a summary of the diabetes self-care activities scale (SDSCA). The SPSS software (V. 22) was used to analyze data through ANOVA test, chi-square tests, one-way ANOVA, Levene's test, and Repeated measures MANCOVA at a significance level of less than 0.05. The total scores of MSCS and SDSCA in four and 16 weeks significantly increased compared to the baseline in both SRIP and CMSRIP groups (P < 0.001), but not in the control group. The mean scores of MSCS and SDSCA at week 4 in CMSRIP group improved significantly more than SRIP group (98.43 ± 5.83 vs. 90.31 ± 12.62 and 70.38 ± 4.18 vs. 62.35 ± 5.53). Combined mindfulness and self-regulation education are significantly effective in promoting self-care skills and improving cognitive processes and can used to improve older adults' self-care behaviors.