Young peoples' perceptions of smoking and personal social factors that influence their behaviour

ABSTRACT\ud This thesis seeks to identify the psychosocial factors that influence adolescent\ud smoking and to make suggestions for a smoking prevention/intervention\ud programme. It is of particular interest to explore adolescent smoking in the Greek\ud setting, where both teachers and pupils smoke on the school premises and\ud smoking is socially acceptable. The participants are 672 pupils who attend six\ud Greek schools - 351 aged 12-13 years old (mean age=12.6 years) and 321 aged\ud 15-16 years old (mean age=15.8 years). Self-report, anonymous and confidential\ud questionnaires are completed at the beginning and at the end of the academic\ud year (7 months apart). The participants are grouped into four categories\ud according to their smoking behaviour and 150 of them are randomly selected and\ud interviewed. The interviews are semi-structured and employed to validate the\ud self-reports and to provide more in-depth information on certain issues.\ud Information on the situation in Greek schools is collected from 120 teachers who\ud are interviewed at the beginning of the academic year. There is a significant\ud increase in the smoking prevalence of both age groups at phase two. The patterns\ud of the changes in smoking support the theory of stages. Psychosocial factors,\ud such as school, teachers, parents, siblings and friends exert different levels of\ud influence on the adolescents, who are not merely passive recipients. Personality\ud factors are equally important determinants of the adolescents' decision to\ud experiment with cigarettes and take up the habit of smoking or not. Adolescents\ud foster many misconceptions about cigarettes, which may differ according to their\ud gender. Their knowledge tends to mirror a reproduction of statements they do not\ud fully understand. Intention to smoke in the future seems to be a fairly accurate\ud predictor of taking up smoking eventually. Suggestions for smoking prevention/intervention programmes and a model of layers of influence on\ud adolescent smoking are discussed

The influence of teaching experience and professional development on Greek teachers' attitudes towards inclusion

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the European Journal of Special Needs Education© 2007 Copyright Taylor & Francis; European Journal of Special Needs Education is available online at http://www.informaworld.comOn the assumption that the successful implementation of any inclusive policy is largely dependent on educators being positive about it, a survey was undertaken into the attitudes of Greek teachers to inclusion. The 155 respondents were general education primary teachers drawn from one region of Northern Greece, with a proportion deliberately selected from schools identified as actively implementing inclusive programmes. The analysis revealed positive attitudes towards the general concept of inclusion but variable views on the difficulty of accommodating different types of disabilities in mainstream classrooms. Teachers who had been actively involved in teaching pupils with SEN held significantly more positive attitudes than their counterparts with little or no such experience. The analysis also demonstrated the importance of substantive long-term training in the formation of positive teacher attitudes towards inclusion. The paper concludes with recommendations for developing critical professional development courses that can result in attitudinal change and the formulation of genuinely inclusive practices

Stress in Greek Primary Schoolteachers Working Under Conditions of Financial Crisis

Teachers come in daily contact with a number of students and colleagues and are likely to report high levels of job-related stress. This study aims to explore the effect of gender, age, years of teaching experience, teaching students with special educational needs and burnout on teacher stress. The participants were 384 Greek primary schoolteachers, aged 25 to 59 years old (mean age = 41 years and 4 months), 146 males (38%) and 238 females (62%). They completed the Questionnaire on Teacher Stress (Kyriacou & Sutcliffe, 1978) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators Survey – MBI-ES (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996). It was found that Greek primary schoolteachers report low levels of stress and that their stress is predicted by burnout and teaching students with special educational needs. More specifically, teachers with higher levels of burnout and those who do not teach students with special educational needs report higher levels of stress

Parental perceptions of health-related quality of life of Albanian children with epilepsy

Epilepsy adversely affects the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children living with it. Even though almost 80% of children with epilepsy live in developing countries very little research has been conducted with the specific population. The present study took place in Albania and aimed to investigate parental perceptions of the HRQoL of their children with epilepsy. Considering the well-defined gender roles in the Albanian traditional family it was expected that mothers and fathers reports of their children’s HRQoL would differ. Results showed no differences in maternal and paternal reports; instead there was a moderate correspondence between the reports across all dimensions. Parents also reported the highest scores of HRQoL in the interpersonal dimension and the lowest scores in the intrapersonal dimension. The findings have implications in the context of future research and also medical care for children with epilepsy in Albania

Contamination sensitivity in autism, Down syndrome, and typical development

Althoughtypicallydevelopingchildrenareattunedearlytoothers\u2019 communicative signals, one of the very \ufb01rst noticeable impairmentsinchildrenwithautismisinattendingtovoicesandspeech. Yet it is through conversations with others that children are made aware that apparently edible substances may in reality be contaminated. In two experiments, we examined contamination sensitivity in children with autism, typically developing children, and a group of children with Down syndrome. In Experiment 1, many children with autism who ranged in age from 4 to 10 years were prepared to drink liquids that had been contaminated by insects. There was evidence for a developmental delay as contamination sensitivity in autism was associated with increasing age. In Experiment 2, children with autism were prepared to drink liquids that had been contaminated by human hair or had insects in close proximity. By contrast, in both experiments, both typically developing children and children with Down syndrome demonstrated strong contamination sensitivity. We discuss the results in terms of constraints on the early learning of the edible\u2013 inedible distinction

- Contamination sensitivity in autism, Down sindrome, and typical development

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