Research suggests that school climate is a critical component in a student's sense of safety within a school and is the foundation for student-staff relationships. Despite this recognition, school staff demonstrate an insufficient intention to intervene on witnessed acts of gender- and sexuality-based inequity and grapple with discerning what…

Stereotypy or automatically occurring behaviors, as commonly seen in children with autism spectrum disorder, can be divided into three main categories: self-injury, stereotypy, and aggressive behaviors. Researchers have suggested different intervention approaches to treat stereotypy, such as redirecting or replacing undesired action. This Delphi…

Special education teachers are tasked with ensuring the implementation of a free appropriate public education, which might also include supporting students who demonstrate severe problem behavior (SPB). Often, students with emotional and behavioral disorders are likely to engage in SPB in various forms such as physical aggression and property…

Despite current trend analyses highlighting declining alcohol use in college students, this population remains at significant risk for alcohol's negative consequences. Though efforts to address these problems are not in short supply, research dedicated to this field has reported mild to moderate effects that decay over time. One method is to…

Bullying is a pervasive issue in schools worldwide affecting the mental health, externalizing behaviors, and academic performance of students. To effectively combat the issue in schools, interventions must target the underlying functions of bullying behaviors. One theory of bullying behavior is that the student who bullies others has experienced…

Growing educational research shows that teachers of color are finding themselves working in racially hostile schools, experiencing racism from their white colleagues in explicit and inexplicit ways. There is a need to further categorize how North Carolina teachers of color are experiencing racism in the workplace and identify how they are affected…

There has been a growing body of research on best approaches to reduce college men's sexual assault perpetration. While some interventions have successfully decreased perpetrator behavior, very few have accounted for college men's pre-intervention likelihood of offending (i.e., risk status). Considering the difficulties in changing high-risk men's…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the problem of how classroom teachers of grades 1-5 described their experiences with school-based SEL interventions to identify potential links between students' content knowledge learned through school-based SEL interventions and students' aggressive and antisocial classroom…

Adolescent anger, aggression, and violent outbursts are social problems significantly affecting each of us. Individual therapeutic management of pathological anger is treated in various ways depending on practitioners' theoretical orientations and competency levels. Popular psychological individual and group therapies addressing anger and…

The aim of this descriptive study was to research and analyze how professional development of anti-bullying specialist influenced reporting of harassment, intimidations, and bullying in their schools. A large urban school district in New Jersey was identified for having several anti-bullying specialists in each of their school actively…

Microaggressions in the higher education setting are a pervasive issue frequently encountered by members of marginalized cultures. The experience of microaggressions can result in negative outcomes on neural substrates, mental health, emotional health, and physical health. Furthermore, academic microaggressions can impact performance, learning,…

Aggressive behaviors are garnering a great deal of national attention in research, policy, and practice circles. The majority of these problematic behaviors occur in non-classroom settings, where students outnumber staff and structure is lacking. Although strategies, like active supervision, are effective at reducing problem behavior in these…

Students with disabilities are more likely to be victimized compared to their peers without disabilities. However, not many studies have examined how general education teachers address bullying of students with disabilities in general education placements. This study used an explanatory mixed methods design and examined strategy use based on…

Three studies were to conducted to examine the correlates of adolescents' bystander responses to different forms of bullying in schools, namely generalized (based on individual differences such as being shy) and bias-based bullying (due to group membership such as being an immigrant or a refugee). Research on bystanders' responses to bullying…

Cross-national studies consistently reveal that bullying is a pervasive problem in schools and associated with a multitude of deleterious outcomes. The present dissertation conducted two studies to further provide insight into this complex phenomenon and facilitate the development of effective bullying prevention programs. Youth involved in…