Deconversion is a biographical change in which one goes from claiming adherence to a religion to departing from it. A meaning system model can help us understand the processes through which deconversion occurs. Drawing on that framework, we explored how perceiving hypocrisy in one's religious setting influences adolescent deconversion. Irrational…

This article analyses Spanish media treatment of a certain type of immigrant: the unaccompanied foreign minor ("MENA" in Spanish). The media play an important role in creating and disseminating ideas and images amongst the general public, thereby promoting the articulation of sets of meanings called discourses. The main goal of this…

The present study investigated age-related changes in the intergroup allocation of resources depending on whether the ingroup norm was competitive or cooperative. Participants included children (M[subscript age] = 8.69), adolescents (M[subscript age] = 13.81), and adults (M[subscript age] = 20.89), (N = 263) who were inducted into simulated groups…

This paper examines key debates and perspectives on sex education in "Health Education Journal" ("HEJ"), from the date of the journal's first publication in March 1943 to the present day. Matters relating to sexuality and sexual health are revealed to be integral to "HEJ'"s history. First published as Health…

Using an individual-by-environment framework, this study evaluated the role of individual- and group-level moral indices and their interaction in predicting student reports of bullying. The sample included 1,009 Italian adolescents (36% girls) from 56 classrooms (mean age = 15.02 years, SD = 0.71). Individual-level predictors included gender and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors associated with teenagers' willingness to volunteer with elderly persons using an expanded model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Participants consisted of 258 ninth-grade students at a large high school in the northern part of Israel. Participants completed a structured…

This viewpoint begins by exploring whether the global phenomenon of the 2011 "SlutWalks" constitutes a feminist politics of re-signification. We then look at some qualitative, focus group data with teen girls who participated in a UK SlutWalk. We suggest girls are not only negotiating a schizoid double pull towards performing knowing…

The fairplayer.manual is a school-based program to prevent bullying. The program consists of fifteen to seventeen consecutive ninety-minute lessons using cognitive-behavioral methods, methods targeting group norms and group dynamics, and discussions on moral dilemmas. Following a two-day training session, teachers, together with skilled…

In this article, the author discusses youth culture and raises concerns about the tricky social terrain modernity offers for youth identity. He discusses familiar "topoi" or thematics that seem to drive most work on youth culture, suggests that justice and fairness are moral imperatives, and that acknowledging the worthiness of difference is one…

Which moral principles should guide us in evaluating sexual contacts of adolescents? This paper tries to answer this question by taking two steps. First, the implications of a liberal sexual ethics for adolescence are spelled out, assessed and refuted. The core principle of the liberal ethical view, the principle of valid consent, takes competence…

This paper is based on a participatory action research. The research is based on a process of resolving real-life moral dilemmas in the Moral Education classroom. It critically analyses the types of real-life moral dilemmas that a selected group of secondary students thought about. It also indicates the moral choices that they make based on their…

In this article Jan Steutel's paper "Towards a sexual ethics for adolescence" is discussed. It is argued that his dichotomous conception of "child" versus "adult" unnecessarily limits his conception of "adolescence", with unfortunate consequences for the answers to his research questions. Steutel's treatment…

Agnes Tellings rightly observes that adolescents, if compared with pre-pubescent children, are much more capable of making their own choices and therefore should be granted much more freedom to arrange their own lives. However, the capacity of adolescents to make prudent choices still seems to be below the threshold of competence. Therefore,…

For over a decade, battles have raged between conservative Abstinence Only Until Marriage (AOUM) sexuality education advocates and liberal Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) advocates. While these battles have focused on the inclusion of health information about contraception and whether or not a curriculum must advocate abstinence as the…

Forty-five foster youth (9-13 year old and 14-17 year olds) were asked to evaluate moral, conventional, and personal rules and violations by providing judgments and reasons. The results suggest that foster youths' judgments distinguished between the moral, conventional, and personal domains. However, in providing reasons to support their judgments…