Background: Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, images, or videos through electronic means. Research has examined sexting in high school and college students. This study seeks to add to the existing literature by exploring the nature of pressured or problematic sexting in middle school-aged subjects. Methods:…

This preliminary study explored a person-group dissimilarity hypothesis in the context of adolescent sexual harassment. Theory suggests that victimized youth are expected to experience worse outcomes if they perceive victimization to be a rare experience among their peers. This study comprised 435 middle school students who reported on their…

Peer sexual harassment (PSH) occurs frequently and across contexts during adolescence. The current study examined the relations among PSH in school, psychological distress, sexual experimentation, and sexual risk-taking in a sample of African American middle and high school girls. Results indicate that negative body appraisals mediated the…

Bullying is an international issue that is only just beginning to be researched in India and anecdotal evidence in Punjab, India, has suggested that most schools in the Punjab are in denial about bullying on campus. Our aim was to investigate the nature of bullying in this region using the PhotoStory Method. We sought to discover how young people…

Gender-based violence is pervasive in South African society and is often seen as the driver of HIV, particularly affecting youth. Rural KwaZulu-Natal, where we have been working in a district in an on-going university-school partnership, is noted as the epicentre of the epidemic. The two secondary schools in this study were therefore conveniently…

Peer sexual harassment is a stressor for many girls in middle and high school. Prior research indicates that approach strategies (seeking support or confronting) are generally more effective than avoidance strategies in alleviating stress. However, the deployment of effective coping behaviors depends partly on how individuals evaluate different…

Many public school districts across New York State provide sex-ed instruction that is inaccurate, incomplete and biased. This report examines sex-ed materials used during the 2009-2010 and 2010-11 school years from across New York State. Among the New York Civil Liberties Union's (NYCLU's) key findings: (1) Lessons on reproductive anatomy and…

Social media use has become so pervasive in the lives of American teens that having a presence on a social network site is almost synonymous with being online. Fully 95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of those online teens are users of social media sites. The authors focused their attention in this research on social network sites…

When examining the experiences of adolescent girls, a study into the presumptions teachers have regarding female adolescent sexuality is a very important aspect to explore. This article presents the findings from a study we conducted with eleven middle- and high school teachers in a southeastern state from both rural and urban districts. In-depth…