Pornography often depicts traditional gender norms and aggression paired with sexual behaviour. Among adolescents, exposure to pornography is related to unhealthy beliefs about gender, sex and relationships. Critical thinking about media may reduce the internalisation of unhealthy messages in pornography. However, there is a dearth of research…

Guided by the biopsychosocial model, we examined (a) the prevalence of weight control behaviors (WCBs; i.e., trying to stay the same weight, lose weight, gain weight, or do nothing about weight) among early adolescent boys by race/ethnicity and grade level, and (b) how the boys' perceptions of sociocultural pressures (from parents, peers, and…

This case study reveals how a faith-based initiative offering structured teacher training in media literacy. The program is centered in Catholic Social Teaching, encouraging the use of critical media literacy in the classroom to aid the learning of social justice issues. The critical literacy of Paulo Freire serves as theoretical framework to help…

Media play an important role in young people's lives as an agent of socialization, both generally and with regard to mathematics. To understand the mathematics-related messages disseminated to young people via popular media, we analyzed portrayals of mathematics and mathematicians in over 40 media examples (television shows, movies, websites,…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore and describe the barriers to the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) to support active learning in the classroom as perceived by middle school site principals. Methodology: This was a qualitative phenomenological study using data collected from…

Many contemporary superintendents face a new challenge, one of ensuring that the school buildings in their school districts are safe, sound, and conducive to offering the educational programs found in twenty-first century classrooms. Despite the growing need to upgrade the physical plants in many school districts, few superintendents have the…

Generally, the speaking aspect is not properly debated when discussing the positive and negative effects of television (TV), especially on children. So, to highlight this point, this study was first initialized by asking the question: "What are the effects of TV on speech?" and secondly, to transform the effects that TV has on speech in…

This article focuses on how Dutch newspapers represented the debate in the Netherlands in the 1970s on comprehensive education and thus influenced the Dutch Middle School experiment. Wiborg's identification of key factors of success in Scandinavia was used as a point of reference. The article shows that these key factors did not exist in the…

Two cross-sectional studies investigated media influences on adolescents' substance use and intentions to use substances in the context of exposure to parental and peer risk and protective factors. A total of 729 middle school students (n = 351, 59% female in Study 1; n = 378, 43% female in Study 2) completed self-report questionnaires. The sample…

One of the primary goals of social studies education in the United States is to prepare students for civically active, politically informed, and socially engaged democratic citizenship. Too often, however, the curricula fall short of this goal. Textbooks and state curriculum standards tend to portray citizenship as a static concept rather than an…

The study provides a unique portrait of young men self-identified as potential perpetrators of school violence, and explores the relative contributions of personal attributes and the media in the creation and preservation of optimistic biases. The study is the first to document optimistic bias among middle and high school students within the…