Objective: Self-affirmation theory proposes that defensive processing prevents people from accepting health-risk messages, which may explain university students' dismissal of risk-information about binge drinking. SA-interventions may encourage non-biased processing of such information through impacting on interpersonal feelings and self-esteem.…

Objective: Alcohol misuse prevention often fails to account for or replace the pleasurable benefits of drinking such as relaxing and socialising with friends. Increasingly, alcohol-free dance music events are emerging, allowing people to gain the positive outcomes of dancing without recourse to alcohol. This study sought to explore whether…

Purpose: Many existing interventions to reduce excessive drinking in university students attempt to target individual cognitions, which ignore the wider contextual features that drive excessive drinking and mark this as an important aspect of university life. The purpose of this paper is to explore students' views about preventing excessive…

Setting: The United Kingdom (UK) government has acknowledged that there is a problem with excess alcohol consumption, in particular amongst young people. Higher education is an important health promotion setting in which to explore not only how sensible drinking patterns can be facilitated and embedded in students' current lifestyles but also how…

Objective: To assess the extent to which university students are following UK Government advice regarding appropriate consumption of alcohol, and to investigate if students can be placed into distinct clusters based on their drinking behaviour. Design: A descriptive questionnaire study. Setting: One hundred and nineteen undergraduate students from…

Currently, there exists relatively scant sociological research on the identities of first-year UK university students, and specifically those holding a strong Christian identity. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework, this article explores issues of identity construction amongst a group of first-year undergraduate students based at a UK…

In this longitudinal ethnographic research, we report on 7 years of hazing rituals on two separate men's sports teams at one university in the United Kingdom. Using 38 in-depth interviews alongside naturalistic observations of the initiation rituals, we demonstrate that hazing activities have changed from being centered around homophobic same-sex…

This article provides insights into the discourses that legitimate and perpetuate male undergraduate drinking cultures and considers the role of alcohol in communicating hegemonic masculinity within one British university. Taking laddishness as a template of hegemonic masculinity, the article contends that male students' heavy alcohol use is…

This article investigates the role of sport in framing and communicating hegemonic masculinity among male undergraduates within one British university. The data were collected through questionnaires and one-to-one interviews with 24 male students who were asked to consider their relationship with laddish masculinities. The evidence indicates that…

The transfer of knowledge, policy and practice between nations increasingly involves knowledge of the theory and practice of evaluation. This article examines issues arising from the transcultural evaluation of a drug and alcohol misuse knowledge and skills transfer programme for nurses, nurse teachers and medical staff in the narcology service in…

Objective: The aim of this paper was to investigate drinking patterns, attitudes towards drinking and predictors of binge drinking as well as negative consequences of binge drinking in students. Design & Method: Data was collected by questionnaire from 261 students living on campus at one Welsh university. Results: The results showed that…

This qualitative research was designed to investigate students' health needs and their views on health promotion in a University. A total of 31 students participated in focus group discussions. Inductive analysis revealed two central themes: student health concerns and health promotion in a University setting. The former included issues associated…

Although higher education for 50% of all school leavers by 2010 is the stated aim of the United Kingdom government, it is clear that initiatives aimed at widening access do not reach those most in need. This is nowhere more true than in the case of people who have spent all or part of their childhood in the care of local authorities, and who…