It is generally acknowledged that teachers play an important role in preventing or reducing violence in schools. The objectives of this study were: (a) to identify teachers' responsibilities in terms of preventing violence among school children and (b) to solicit teachers' views as what they have been doing in preventing violence. Sample for the…

Homophobic harassment and bullying are persistent issues in Canadian schools despite recent initiatives to improve school climate. Among the reasons is that educators feel reluctant or ill-prepared to address these issues. The purpose of this paper is to examine how teacher education can help make schools safer by addressing LGBTQ issues and…

This booklet is a summary of an extensive review of research and other literature undertaken to guide the development of the Wellbeing@School website self-review process, survey tools and content. This website is being developed by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). The "Wellbeing@School" website is one component…

Efforts to prevent and curb school bullying have resulted in a proliferation of anti-school-bullying programmes, many based on intuitive appeal rather than systematic evidence. This article presents a comparative analysis of two Norwegian programmes whose developers have demonstrated the effectiveness of their interventions: the Olweus Programme…

Instructional written materials play important roles as teachers' agents in effective teaching practices. Worksheets are one of the most frequently used materials. In this exploratory study, the relationships between worksheet usage and science achievement in 32 countries were examined through the use of TIMSS and PIRLS data and multiple…

School bullying is a worldwide worrisome phenomenon that occurs within a broad context in which pupils and teachers can either reinforce or undermine violent behavior through interaction. Based on a nationally representative sample of students in Israel, this study examined patterns in student perceptions of student and teacher responses to school…

This study examined student perceptions of their school environment (specifically, safety and inclusion in the school, experiences being bullied, and clear expectations for behaviour) and their relation with academic achievement at the school level. Participants were students in 969 elementary schools and 73 middle schools who took part in a…

Instructional written materials play important roles as teachers' agents in effective teaching practices. Worksheets are one of the most frequently used materials. In this exploratory study, the relationships between worksheet usage and science achievement in 32 countries were examined through the use of TIMSS and PIRLS data and multiple…

In 2003 Australia was one of the first countries to develop an integrated national policy, called the National Safe Schools Framework (NSSF), for the prevention and management of violence, bullying, and other aggressive behaviors. The effectiveness of this framework has not yet been formally evaluated. Cross-sectional data collected in 2007 from…

On 31 July 2012 the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett convened the "National Forum: How schools and parents can work together to address bullying" at Parliament House. The Forum brought together principals, parents groups, young people, as well as experts in education, child welfare, psychology and…

Ofsted has always courted controversy. With the appointment of a strident new chief inspector its operations are likely to remain, or become increasingly, controversial. This article provides a detailed critique of key documents which describe the new inspection regime that for good or ill will have major consequences in schools. Although in…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of early educational quality on children's cortisol levels. It was hypothesised that the environmental stressors might load children's immature stress regulative systems thus affecting their diurnal cortisol levels. The study sample consisted of 146 preschool-aged children. Cortisol was measured…

Restorative justice (RJ), a distinctive philosophical approach that seeks to replace punitive, managerial structures of schooling with those that emphasize the building and repairing of relationships has been embraced in the past two decades by a variety of school systems worldwide in an effort to build safe school communities. Early studies…

This research describes the impact of an integrated training program (Positive Space I and Positive Space II) on pre-service teachers' understandings of and abilities to create safe spaces for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered, two-spirited, queering and/or questioning (LGBTQ) youth and allies in schools. Our Bachelor of Education program…

The isolation experienced by LGBTQ youth, who are closeted in all or parts of their lives, leads to a higher rate of alcohol and drug use, smoking, mental health issues, and suicide. National studies in the United States and Canada show that LGBTQ youth are three to six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts and that…