The purpose of this article was to find out social challenges learners residing in informal settlements in Katima Mulilo Town face. Informal settlements crop up as people move from rural settings to urban areas as they seek better facilities, a process known as urbanisation. However, not all who migrate into urban areas end up getting the required…

Bullying affects approximately 40% of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Cyberbullying, a type of bullying facilitated by electronic devices, may be particularly worrisome for parents of children with IDD as constant monitoring is difficult. In this study, ten parents of Special Olympics Maryland athletes completed…

Objectives: Physical activity, including some form of vigorous activity, is a key component of a healthy lifestyle in young people. Self-efficacy and social support have been identified as key determinants of physical activity; however, the mechanism that reflects the interplay of these two factors is not well understood. The aim of the current…

Background: Across Europe and the Nordic countries, unemployment among 18-30 year-olds is a major challenge, which in some countries is being tackled by focusing on education. In Denmark, young unemployed people or people on the margins of the education system are assessed regarding what is known as an "education requirement". Hence,…

Since the 1960s, studies in the psycho-sciences have implied that people with dyslexia are at increased risk of engaging in criminal behaviours. There are two common themes that have emerged from this research. Firstly, studies that employ a psycho-medical model imply that the correlation between dyslexia and crime is embedded within neurological…

About 35% of healthy weight adolescent females describe themselves as overweight, and 66% report planning to lose weight. Body weight dissatisfaction is associated with unhealthy weight loss practices including diet pill/powder/liquid (PPL) use. Few studies have examined diet PPL use in healthy weight adolescent females; therefore, Youth Risk…

Most interventions designed to prevent HIV/STI/pregnancy risk behaviours in young people have multiple components based on psychosocial theories (e.g. social cognitive theory) dictating sets of mediating variables to influence to achieve desired changes in behaviours. Mediation analysis is a method for investigating the extent to which a variable…

African American (AA) adolescent girls are at heightened risk for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and thus knowledge of factors related to risky sexual behavior in this population is crucial. Using Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), this paper examines pathways from female caregivers' risky sexual behavior and substance use to…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to test the hypothesized structural paths in Bandura's social-cognitive theory (SCT) model on adolescent girls' physical activity following a 12-month physical activity and dietary intervention to prevent obesity. Method: We conducted a 12-month follow-up study of 235 adolescent girls ("M[subscript…

Background: There have been limited theoretical developments with respect to sexual offending by people with intellectual disabilities [Lindsay (2005) Mental Retardation, Vol. 43, pp. 428-441], especially when compared with the development of theories for mainstream sexual offenders. This paper aims at examining a range of theories in their…

This article examines the well-documented relationship between early initiation or onset of criminal behavior and a heightened risk of involvement in offending. Previous research examining this question conducted by Nagin and Farrington ("Criminology" 30:235-260, 1992a; "Criminology" 30:501-523, 1992b) used data from the…

Objective: The authors identified the principal components of bar and nightclub expectancy in college students and the associations between these factors and the risk behavior of nightclubbing. Participants: A total of 4,384 undergraduates enrolled at a large, public university participated. Methods: In the first phase (July-September 2007), the…

Despite growing attention to the subject, a dearth of information exists regarding college students' perceptions and process of meaning-making related to the act of oral sex. Such perspectives and allied social sexual scripts can have considerable consequences on the sexuality and sexual health of older teens and college-aged populations. The…

Men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to be disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They represent more than half of all persons living with HIV and over 60% of HIV-infected men. Although as a group MSM no longer account for the majority of new HIV infections, they are estimated to account for 43% of all new infections--more than…

The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior (Joiner, 2005) proposes that the need to belong is fundamental; when met it can prevent suicide and when thwarted it can substantially increase the risk for suicide. We investigate one source of group-wide variation in belongingness among college students--changes in the social…