In this manuscript, the authors examine three young adult novels using critical literacy as a lens for addressing issues of power and justice around sexual violence and the actions taken by characters to make social change in their fictional schooling contexts. This piece uses scholarship around youth activism in young adult literature to engage…

The Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is administered by the Montana Office of Public Instruction every two years to students in grades 7 through 12. The purpose of the survey is to help monitor the prevalence of behaviors that not only influence youth health, but also put youth at risk for the most significant health and social problems…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) has a long history of providing representative data on the nation's high school students. These assessments are crucial to CDC's mission of identifying health behaviors and experiences; understanding the determinants and co-occurrence of risks;…

Focus groups (N = 15 groups; 8 with girls, 7 with boys) with adolescents in high schools near Cape Town, South Africa, were used to conduct a qualitative investigation of reported reasons for using and not using substances and for having and not having sex. Adolescents reported Enhancement, Negative States, Social, and Aversive Social motivations…

This study investigated the effects of a Men as Allies--based intervention on high school students' rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors. As hypothesized at posttest, the male and female experimental groups demonstrated a significant decrease in rape-supportive attitudes, which was maintained at follow-up. Male participants viewed peers'…

The psychometric properties of the Acceptance of Coercive Sexual Behavior (ACSB), a multimedia measure of adolescent dating attitudes, were examined. The ACSB is an interactive instrument that uses video vignettes to depict adolescent dating situations. Analyses of the measure's factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and…

Educational drama has been embraced as a promising way to address sensitive and highly-charged issues among youth. An Israeli drama, "Backyard Games", about gang rape, based on an actual case in a kibbutz [a communal settlement] called Shomrat, is considered the definitive work on the subject in Israeli theatre. Written by Edna Mazya and…