Developing a Multi-Tiered System of Support-Based Plan for Bullying Prevention Among Students with Disabilities: Perspectives from General and Special Education Teachers During Professional Development.

Students with disabilities or at risk for disability identification (SWD) are disproportionately affected by the bullying dynamic; however, professional development and educator-focused training on preventing bullying for this population is lacking. To address this gap, this study presents an analysis of qualitative data collected from general and special education teachers (n = 33) participating in an online professional development training using Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) to prevent bullying among students with disabilities. Braun and Clarke's six-step process was used to identify key themes and exemplar quotes from qualitative reflections collected as knowledge check responses embedded within two training modules. Three themes were identified and examined based on MTSS tiers: (1) teacher perceptions of SWD and their inclusion in a MTSS-based bullying prevention plan; (2) identifying key stakeholders for preventing bullying within a MTSS-based bullying prevention plan; and (3) potential challenges and solutions of implementing a MTSS-based bullying prevention plan within the individual, classroom, and school contexts. Findings highlight the need to educate teachers on how to use MTSS, especially for bullying prevention and interventions that are inclusive of SWD. Implications from this work extend to all students including those with mental health considerations, regardless of disability status. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-023-09589-8.

"I'm a security professional, a counselor, a leader, and sometimes a father figure": Transformative social emotional learning through the eyes of school security professionals.

Schools are increasingly hiring full-time, unarmed school security professionals (SSPs), who are different from School Resource Officers (SROs), to help facilitate safe and supportive school climates. However, there is a paucity of literature about how they describe and engage with social emotional learning (SEL), particularly equity-focused or transformative SEL. The current study is a secondary data analysis using qualitative responses to content embedded in two online professional development (PD) modules created for school security: SEL and cultural competence (CC). Forty-eight SSPs completed the SEL module and 18 of these SSPs also completed the CC module. Informed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning's transformative SEL literature, researchers sought to understand how SSPs describe SEL and how they apply transformative SEL in their work. A qualitative transcript analysis was performed, and transformative SEL's five subthemes were identified through this iterative process: working collaboratively, equity and inclusion, cultural humility, ties to identity, and advocacy. Findings demonstrated that SSPs who completed the modules apply transformative SEL principles in various, overlapping ways, illustrating their capacity to support student SEL. However, some SSPs struggled to make ties to their own identity, highlighting the need for widespread training and additional emphasis on self-awareness in transformative SEL PD.

Pilot Evaluation of the Elementary Social-Emotional Learning Program Sources of Strength.

Schools and students have faced a variety of challenges during the 2020-2021 academic year as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. These issues have drawn attention to the increased need for robust social-emotional learning skills at the elementary level to address the deficits exacerbated by the pandemic. Sources of Strength is an evidence-based suicide prevention program for middle and high school students. In 2020, Sources of Strength launched an elementary school curriculum focused on promoting protective factors and resilience. Data were collected across 11 elementary schools (N = 1022; 3-5th graders) in the Great Plains region of the USA at two time points during the COVID-19 pandemic (T1: Fall of 2020, T2: Spring of 2021). We examine the effectiveness of the program using a pre- and post-test design measuring various student social-emotional outcomes including positive classroom climate, emotional problems, school belonging, help-seeking attitudes, bullying perpetration, peer victimization, student and teacher intervention, student well-being, and student resilience. The program was evaluated using multilevel regression models to examine the associations between self-reported student program exposure and student outcomes. Although comparisons between T1 and T2 indicated a worsening of several student outcomes, positive associations were found when accounting for the degree of student exposure to the program. Greater student exposure was associated with improved positive classroom climate, school belonging, help-seeking attitudes, student well-being, resiliency, and lower reports of emotional problems. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-023-09567-0.

Teachers, Stress, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis.

The 2020-2021 academic year brought numerous challenges to teachers across the country as they worked to educate students amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study is a secondary data analysis of qualitative responses collected as part of a teacher survey to evaluate a social emotional learning curriculum implemented during the 2020-2021 academic year. The lived experiences of teachers (N = 52) across 11 elementary schools in the Great Plains region were captured through open-ended questions as the teachers transitioned from in-person to remote learning. A phenomenological approach was utilized to analyze the challenges expressed by teachers as they faced instability and additional professional demands. Given that stress and other factors that strain mental health exist within multiple layers of an individual's social ecology, a modified social-ecological framework was used to organize the results and themes. Findings suggest that during the academic year, teachers experienced stressors related to their personal and professional roles, concerns for students' well-being which extended beyond academics, and frustrations with administration and other institutional entities around COVID safety measures. Without adequate support and inclusion of teacher perspectives, job-related stress may lead to teacher shortages, deterioration of teacher mental health, and ultimately worse outcomes for students. Implications for policy, research, and practice are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09533-2.

Social-Ecological Predictors of Homophobic Name-Calling Perpetration and Victimization Among Early Adolescents.

Bias-based aggression at school in the form of homophobic name-calling is quite prevalent among early adolescents. Homophobic name-calling is associated with low academic performance, higher risky sexual behaviors, and substance abuse, among other adverse outcomes. This longitudinal study examined risk and protective factors across multiple domains of the social ecology (individual, peer, family, school and community) and levels of analysis (within- and between-person) associated with homophobic name-calling perpetration and victimization. Students from four middle schools in the U.S. Midwest (N = 1,655; X ¯ age = 12.75; range = 10-16 years) were surveyed four times (Spring/Fall 2008, Spring/Fall 2009). For homophobic name-calling perpetration, significant risk factors included impulsivity, social dominance, traditional masculinity, family violence, and neighborhood violence; while empathy, peer support, school belonging, and adult support were significant protective factors. For homophobic name-calling victimization, significant risk factors included empathy (between-person), impulsivity, traditional masculinity, family violence, and neighborhood violence, while empathy (within-person), parental monitoring, peer support, school belonging, and adult support were significant protective factors.

Latent Class Analysis of Victimization Patterns and Associated Protective Factors among LGBTQ Youth.

Youth victimization in schools remains a fervent public health issue, despite increased awareness of this issue, and this is especially true for marginalized populations like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. Youth violence has been studied widely, but less research has sought to understand factors protective of violence victimization, particularly protective factors shared across multiple forms of violence. In the current study, we utilized latent class analysis to test patterns of three types of victimization: peer victimization (PV), homophobic name-calling victimization (HNCV), and sexual harassment victimization (SHV). In addition, we tested protective factors associated with experiencing these types of violence. Our sample included 4778 9-11th graders in the United States, of which about 15% identified as LGBTQ. Three unique classes of victimization emerged, suggesting that concurrent forms of violence occur among some groups of adolescents. LGBTQ youth were more likely to be members of classes which demonstrated higher levels of victimization. Consistent with previous literature, medical access, counseling access, family support, peer support, and spirituality emerged as significant protective factors associated with a lower risk of victimization. We discuss the implications of our findings with specific attention to protecting the wellbeing of SGM youth.

Teen Dating Violence Victimization: Associations Among Peer Justification, Attitudes Toward Gender Inequality, Sexual Activity, and Peer Victimization.

The current study, grounded in a social learning theoretical framework, examined attitudes and behaviors associated with verbal and physical teen dating violence (TDV) victimization. Because TDV varies by gender in both frequency and severity, these associations were examined first within the overall sample, and then by gender to further investigate these differences. A total of 1,884 adolescents (49.2% boys; 50.8% girls; average age 14.79 years; SD = .58) who reported ever dating someone were included in the analysis. Specifically, peers' justification of TDV, attitudes supporting gender inequality, sexual activity, and peer victimization were included to determine their cross-sectional association with verbal and physical TDV victimization. Data were analyzed separately for boys and girls. Results indicated that peers' justification of TDV, peer victimization, sexual activity, and attitudes supporting gender inequality were each associated with higher physical and verbal TDV victimization for girls and boys. Most of these factors remained significant when separated by gender, except for sexual activity and attitudes supporting gender inequality, which were not associated with physical TDV victimization for boys and girls, respectively. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Interventions to Decrease Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization.

Evidence suggests that cyberbullying among school-age children is related to problem behaviors and other adverse school performance constructs. As a result, numerous school-based programs have been developed and implemented to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Given the extensive literature and variation in program effectiveness, we conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of programs to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Our review included published and unpublished literature, utilized modern, transparent, and reproducible methods, and examined confirmatory and exploratory moderating factors. A total of 50 studies and 320 effect sizes spanning 45,371 participants met the review protocol criteria. Results indicated that programs significantly reduced cyberbullying perpetration (g = -0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% CI [-0.28, -0.09]) and victimization (g = -0.13, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [-0.21, -0.05]). Moderator analyses, however, yielded only a few statistically significant findings. We interpret these findings and provide implications for future cyberbullying prevention policy and practice.

A meta-analysis of longitudinal partial correlations between school violence and mental health, school performance, and criminal or delinquent acts.

The daily challenges resulting from all types of school violence-such as physical aggression, bullying, peer victimization, and general threats-have the potential to affect, longitudinally, students' mental health, school performance, and involvement in criminal or delinquent acts. Across primary and secondary studies, however, variation in how and how much school violence relates to these outcomes, has persisted. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis, therefore, was to clarify this uncertainty by synthesizing the longitudinal relations. We conducted exhaustive searching procedures, implemented rigorous screening and coding processes, and estimated an underused effect size, the partial correlation from multiple regression models, before estimating a random-effects meta-analysis using robust variance estimation. We meta-analyzed 114 independent studies, totaling 765 effect sizes across 95,618 individual participants. The results of the overall analyses found a statistically significant longitudinal relation between school violence, in any role, and the aggregated outcome variables (rp = .06). Given that this effect size inherently controls for multiple potential confounding covariates, we consider the relation's magnitude clinically meaningful. We end by discussing ways practitioners and researchers may use these analyses when implementing prevention programming and how the field of meta-analysis should more frequently utilize the partial correlation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Social-Ecological Examination of Non-Consensual Sexting Perpetration among U.S. Adolescents.

Adolescent sexting is a serious public health concern and is associated with adverse psychosocial outcomes, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, declining academic performance, and health problems. Effective prevention of sexting requires a comprehensive and deep understanding of the multiple contexts whereby sexting is likely to occur. The present study explores individual and contextual risk and protective factors that are associated with sexting behavior among a large sample of adolescents. Participants were high school students in midwestern U.S. (N = 2501; LGB n = 309, 76.4% female; non-LGB n = 2192, 47.4% female) who completed self-report measures of sexting and risk (e.g., pornography exposure, impulsivity) and protective (e.g., social support) factors. Path analysis models were conducted with the sexting outcome for groups of LGB and non-LGB students. Among LGB students, results indicated a significant association between sexting and parental monitoring (b = -0.08, p < 0.01); pornography exposure (b = 0.13, p < 0.05); dating partners (b = 0.01, p < 0.01); bullying perpetration (b = 0.17, p < 0.001); and delinquency (b = 0.13; p < 0.001). Among non-LGB students, significant associations were found between sexting and alcohol/substance use (b = 0.05, p < 0.001); bullying (b = 0.08, p < 0.001); and delinquency (b = 0.06, p < 0.001). Moderation analyses suggest that parental monitoring may have a buffering effect between sexting and several risk factors. Recommendations for practitioners include considering the protective factors of sexting perpetration and encouraging appropriate levels of parental monitoring and the continued importance of bullying and alcohol and drug prevention programming to decrease risk factors of sexting perpetration.

Locating unregistered and unreported data for use in a social science systematic review and meta-analysis.

Meta-analysts rely on the availability of data from previously conducted studies. That is, they rely on primary study authors to register their outcome data, either in a study's text or on publicly available websites, and report the results of their work, either again in a study's text or on publicly accessible data repositories. If a primary study author does not register data collection and similarly does not report the data collection results, the meta-analyst is at risk of failing to include the collected data. The purpose of this study is to attempt to locate one type of meta-analytic data: findings from studies that neither registered nor reported the collected outcome data. To do so, we conducted a large-scale search for potential studies and emailed an author query request to more than 600 primary study authors to ask if they had collected eligible outcome data. We received responses from 75 authors (12.3%), three of whom sent eligible findings. The results of our search confirmed our proof of concept (i.e., that authors collect data but fail to register or report it publicly), and the meta-analytic results indicated that excluding the identified studies would change some of our substantive conclusions. Cost analyses indicated, however, a high price to finding the missing studies. We end by reaffirming our calls for greater adoption of primary study pre-registration as well as data archiving in publicly available repositories.