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A continuing challenge in the design of effective interventions to prevent adolescents’ alcohol misuse is understanding adolescent drinking behaviour. Although previous research has indicated a number of factors that might predict drinking behaviour, there has been less qualitative exploration of adolescents’ own views. The purpose of this paper is to gain a further understanding of adolescents’ views towards alcohol use and the types of environment in which adolescents drink alcohol.

A qualitative design was employed with eight focus groups conducted in groups of 3–5 with 27 adolescents (12 girls and 15 boys) aged between 12 and 14.

Thematic analysis identified overarching themes evident across groups suggesting key influences on adolescent drinking behaviour are “social norms”, “enjoyment of alcohol”, “images” and “creation of drinking spaces”.

This research highlights the importance of environments, parents, friends and peers in understanding adolescent’s alcohol use.

The implications of this research suggest that interventions should consider targeting peer groups.

These themes highlight the importance of more socially based interventions.

This paper explores adolescents’ own views of their drinking behaviours.

In-class societies such as the Mini-Society and Mini-Economy provide opportunities for teaching important lessons about choice, scarcity, and economic organization. Those lessons are multiplied when in-class societies meet each other for simulated international trade. We describe a Global Entrepreneurship Marketplace Fair (GEM Fair) for participating elementary and middle school students. The basics of in-class societies, the benefits of cross-society trade, and the administrative setup of an international marketplace are summarized. The limitations of a GEM Fair as also discussed, including large subsidies from parents, “end-of-the-world” effects near the end of a GEM Fair, and the tendency of a free GEM Fair market to produce too many snack food items (from a parent’s or teacher’s point of view).

This chapter uses an analytic procedure to uncover how Saddam Hussein made his past decisions, and the decision rule(s) Saddam adopted in choosing his actions. In analyzing Saddam, a leader who was considered one of the most formidable enemies of the Western world, this study utilizes official recordings captured at the Iraq war, which provide a reliable source of information. This chapter adds to the literature on the use of applied decision analysis (ADA) in analyzing leaders’ decisions.

Specifically, an emphasis is placed on the importance of understanding the process that led Saddam Hussein to his key decisions, in order to create his decision profile. Decision profiles describe the decision rules and models that are used by decision-makers en route to choice and can help understand and predict decisions of world leaders. I use the ADA procedure to examine key foreign policy decisions made by Saddam Hussein. Finally, after thoroughly examining each of these decisions, I attempt to uncover what decision rule Saddam used, and elaborate on the implications and recommendations of my analysis.

We explore how K-8 student scholars experience culturally relevant texts provided during Freedom Schools summer camps, discuss ways Freedom Schools can be a vehicle for youth to become advocates for social change, and consider opportunities created by Freedom Schools for community engagement and partnerships. Mixed methods were used to investigate the experiences of 38 scholars at two different Freedom Schools sites (one rural and one mid-sized urban) in the southeastern U.S. The majority of scholars identified as African American and lived in low-income households. Primary data sources included scholar surveys and reading assessments, camp observations, and interviews with scholars, as well as our own personal reflections as the Research Director (Alysia Roehrig) and Co-Executive Directors (Kristal M. Clemons and Keely Norris) for the sites. We triangulated descriptive statistics from surveys with qualitative data, primarily from interviews, which we analyzed using open coding and axial coding to develop themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The majority of scholars, who participated in the 2016 North Florida Freedom Schools, reported being able to identify with specific characters and situations in the books included in the culturally relevant reading summer program, and they expressed positive thoughts and feelings about the books. Most scholars (74%) maintained or gained in instructional reading levels and did not experience summer learning loss. Children’s confidence that they could act prosocially also increased significantly during the summer camps, which children characterized as different from regular school. Freedom Schools can offer a valuable forum for diverse community members to learn about one another, focus on their strengths, and become agents for social change. We provide suggestions for how other communities can implement the Freedom Schools model.

Dr Cottle's paper was delivered at a meeting of the Reference, Special and Information Section's Western Group at Salisbury on 20 October 1977 to mark the centenary of the Library Association

Notable Social Studies Trade Book (NSSTB) lists include books selected annually by the Book Review Committee of the National Council for the Social Studies in conjunction with the Children’s Book Council. These lists are excellent resources for teachers who use children’s literature to support social studies instruction in their classrooms. We report our analysis of award-winning titles for primary grades published from 2001-2011. Biographies and books that address topics about families are featured as a starting place for primary grades teachers to begin incorporating NSSTB into their social studies instruction. We conclude by suggesting ways for primary grade teachers to utilize the book lists each year.

This paper aims to report a non-randomized control study undertaken to investigate prevalence and correlates of conduct disorder among male secondary education students in South-West Nigeria and to assess the impact of a problem-solving skills and attributional retraining (PSSAR) intervention with this population.

In total, 787 male students from two schools were screened for conduct disorder. All participants who met criteria for the disorder were allocated to either treatment (n = 55) or control (n = 47) groups. Outcome measures comprised the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ; teacher and student versions) and the teacher rating of students’ aggressive behaviors.

Of the sample, 13% were found to present with difficulties that met criteria for conduct disorder. The presence of these difficulties correlated with several demographic variables, including parental conflict and alcohol use. A statistically significant reduction in mean scores was observed for the treatment group in the student rating of the SDQ emotional subscale and total difficulties scores. Teacher ratings were less consistent in that conduct problems, prosocial behavior and total difficulties increased following the intervention, whereas peer problems and aggressive behavior were reported by teachers to reduce. No statistically significant change was found in the outcome measures for the control group.

In resource-constrained settings, school-based interventions are an important means through which treatment gaps in child and adolescent mental health can be addressed.

In resource-constrained settings, school-based interventions are an important means through which treatment gaps in child and adolescent mental health can be addressed. This study’s findings offer some preliminary support for the PSSAR intervention for conduct disorder in this context and indicate areas for further research.

Poor mental health and well-being disproportionately affects vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The focus of this paper is socioeconomic inequalities in perinatal, child and adolescent mental health.

Children and young people in the poorest British households are up to three times more likely to develop mental health problems than their more advantaged peers (Green et al., 2005). The pattern can also be observed in the opposite direction, with poor mental health known to contribute to socioeconomic and other health problems (McCulloch and Goldie, 2010, Parckar, 2008). At a larger scale, the higher the level of inequality within developed countries, the higher the rate of child and adolescent mental health problems (Pickett et al., 2006).

Mechanisms posited as underlying such inequalities include family investment and stress processes. These factors have been taken into account when developing the economic case for investing in perinatal, child and adolescent mental health.

Illustrative examples of progressive universal strategies and policies to help reduce socioeconomic inequalities in mental health, include: action to address the inequality gap in the UK; early intervention to improve mental health; investing in sustainable and evidence-based mental health services; ensuring parity of esteem, and; using appropriately designed social media and online sources to support children’s mental health.