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In this article we discuss how young people experienced a school-based yoga intervention. We pay particular attention to how yoga provides a space for young people to deal with their emotions. We base our discussion on qualitative data from young people in Norway who participated in the European research project “Hippocampus: Promoting Mental Health and Wellbeing among Young People through Yoga.” The qualitative results are based on experiences described by these young people in individual semi-structured interviews and in diaries or logs. Our data include nine interviews performed in the spring of 2019 with young people of Norwegian and refugee background in their late teens and early twenties. There were also 133 logs noted by the students exposed to the yoga intervention. In the qualitative interviews, young people talk about yoga and emotional management, improved sleep habits, and regulation. They also report improved ability to regulate and cope with stress. Yoga seemed especially beneficial for refugee trauma. In this article, we have chosen to focus on the utterances of young people about emotions, as those were quite dominant in our data, especially in the interview material. We have identified instances of emotional regulation, but also of emotional processes and changes of emotions, all of which were related to these young students practicing yoga. The impact of yoga on emotions illustrates the potential of yoga to improve the well-being and mental health of young people.

The new media is characterized by the convergence of technologies that allow information to be acquired, sorted, packaged and transmitted in multiple ways. This chapter focusses on how new media use has provided an opportunity to young people and affected their everyday lives. It also draws attention to the risk behaviours among young people associated with excessive television viewing. Some of the examples include physical and mental health issues around aggression, cyberbullying, addiction, violence, obesity, and loss of values. The empowerment potential of new media tools and technologies for adolescent self-identity is also examined. The problem of accessibility to new media and the increasing socio-economic divide are also examined. The issue of media policies for regulation vs. human rights is also discussed. The authors note the paucity of research in this area and indicate the need for further research.

The social processes of stigmatization and discrimination can have complex and devastating effects on the health and welfare of families and communities, and thus on the environments in which children live and grow. The authors conducted a literature review to identify interventions for reducing the stigma and discrimination that impede child health and well-being in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on nutrition, HIV/AIDS, neonatal survival and infant health, and early child development. Despite broad consensus on the importance of stigma and discrimination as barriers to access and uptake of health information and services, the authors found a dearth of research and program evaluations directly assessing effective interventions in the area of child health except in the area of reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination. While the literature demonstrates that poverty and social exclusion are often stigma-laden and impede adult access to health information and services, and to education relevant to family planning, child rearing, nutrition, health promotion, and disease prevention, the child health literature does not document direct connections between these known mediators of child health and the stigmatization of either children or their caregivers. The child health field would greatly benefit from more research to understand and address stigma as it relates to child health and well-being. The authors suggest applying a framework, adapted from the HIV stigma field, to direct future research and the adaptation of existing strategies to reduce HIV-related stigma and discrimination to address social and health-related stigmas affecting children and their families.

This article discusses yoga as a potential tool for children to deal with stress and regulate themselves. Yoga provides training of mind and body to bring emotional balance. We argue that children and young people need such tools to listen inward to their bodies, feelings, and ideas. Yoga may assist them in developing in sound ways, to strengthen themselves, and be contributing social beings. First, we address how children and young people in today’s world face numerous expectations and constant stimulation through the Internet and other media and communication technologies. One reason why children experience stress and mental health challenges is that globalization exposes the youth all over the world to various new demands, standards, and options. There is also increased pressure to succeed in school, partly due to increased competition but also a diverse range of options available for young people in contemporary times than in the past. Our argument also partially rests on the fact that modern society offers plenty of distractions and unwelcome attractions, especially linked to new media technologies. The dominant presence of multimedia devices and the time spent on them by children are clear indicators of the shift in lifestyles and priorities of our new generation. While these media technologies are valuable resources in children and young people’s lives for communication, learning, and entertainment, they also result in constant competition for youngster’s attention. A main concept in our article is that yoga may help children and young people cope with stress and thus, contribute positively to balance in life, well-being, and mental health. We present research literature suggesting that yoga improves children’s physical and mental well-being. Similarly, yoga in schools helps students improve resilience, mood, and self-regulation skills pertaining to emotions and stress.

Traditionally, Arab society dealt with youth in a superficial and slightly condescending manner’, an Arab columnist wrote recently, ‘offering the occasional sports club and scout troop, a usually underfunded and dysfunctional govemment ministry or organization for youth issues, and a correspondingly noncredible occasional speech by a highranking official stressing that youths are the promise of the future'(Khouri, 2005). In light of this somber diagnosis with which many analysts of the Arab world would concur, it appears paradoxical that, today, Arab youth is at the center of some of the most important and controversial debates, from the impact of Western modernity on gender roles and social relations to consumerism and radical political violence. The scope of these debates transcends the borders of the 22 states making up the Arab world in a post September 11, 2001, environment where Arab youth has become a site that is contested both internally and externally. Young Arab women and men are simultaneously subjected to competing and oftentimes conflicting messages from their parents, educational and religious institutions, the vibrant Arab satellite television industry, 'public diplomacy' from the USA, Iran and others, and the interlocking economic, technological and cultural forces of globalization. Disciplines Communication This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/307