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While there is broad consensus that involving children in research is critically important for understanding their lives, there is considerable caution around their participation in social research on 'sensitive' issues. Such caution is further amplified by a lack of agreement about what constitutes a 'sensitive topic'. This article draws on data from interviews with a range of Australian stakeholders, including children, parents, researchers, ethics committee members, government and non-government organisation representatives, and other decision-makers, specifically related to the question of "what is a sensitive topic?" While participants identified a range of sensitive topics, findings point to sensitivities being closely linked with the contexts of children's lives and experiences. This requires researchers to approach research in ways that reflect more nuanced understandings of these sensitivities, help address potential concerns and facilitate the development of research relationships that promote ethical conduct of research with children.

National concern regarding the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people is now strongly reflected in a wide range of Australian policy initiatives. A considerable number of these target schools and point firmly to the role education is perceived to play in promoting student wellbeing. Given that wellbeing can be difficult to define and complex to measure, closer attention needs to be paid to whether and how the current wellbeing policy environment provides conceptual clarity and intelligible implementation pathways. This article explores some of the current policy ambiguity by drawing on findings from a large-scale, mixed methods study exploring student wellbeing at school. These findings emerged from an extensive analysis of wellbeing-related policy, together with policy-related data from in-depth interviews with teachers and principals. They suggest that approaches to supporting student wellbeing are constrained by an ad hoc policy environment characterised by competing discourses and a consequential lack of clarity regarding how wellbeing is understood and best facilitated within the context of schools. The implications of these findings are discussed with particular attention to the interface between policy and practice with regard to student wellbeing in schools in Australia.

In Australia and internationally, the well-being of children and young people is a core focus of social policy, with a growing imperative to locate well-being within the sphere of education. However, the term "well-being" remains ambiguous and the implementation of educational approaches to promote and improve it appears fragmented and ad hoc. In Australia, little is known about how well-being is understood and supported in schools, particularly from the perspective of students themselves. This article reports on key findings from an ambitious mixed-methods study funded by the Australian Research Council that investigated conceptualisations and practices around well-being in schools. Underpinned by theoretical interests linked to Childhood Studies and recognition theory, the research investigated policy, student and staff perspectives on well-being. The findings point to the key role of relationships, providing considerable scope for analysing the salience of Honneth's modes of recognition for well-being in schools.

Created with twelve Members of Children's Parliament aged 8–14 across Scotland, The Corona Times Journal was established in March 2020 as Scotland entered a national lockdown in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The children were supported to reflect on their experiences of the pandemic in response to themed journal prompts around life at home, health and wellbeing, education and learning, news and information, and the return to schooling. The children's views captured in The Corona Times Journal significantly informed the Independent Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) carried out by the Observatory for Children's Human Rights on behalf of the Children and Young People's Commissioner in Scotland on the impact of COVID-19 measures on children's human rights. This article brings three of the Corona Times journalists together with academics involved in carrying out the Independent CRIA to reflect on the children's experiences of contributing to The Corona Times Journal and, in turn, playing a key role in informing the development of the Independent CRIA and national decision-making processes. It explores the importance of children's participation in decision-making during times of crisis when human rights are at most risk of being compromised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alongside academic and vocational goals, schools are increasingly being called upon to address student well-being. Existing evidence suggests that strong relationships and a sense of connectedness in school communities are important for fostering subjective well-being. However, identifying the specific nature of such relational dynamics, and accommodating the "personal" within school cultures increasingly dominated by "performance" narratives, remains a problematic task. Purpose: This paper draws on Honneth's recognition theory to offer fresh insight into how relationships act to facilitate and limit the experience of well-being at school. We suggest that such an approach holds considerable potential for developing teachers' understanding of the tacit and explicit ways they and their students experience being cared for, respected and valued and the ways in which such actions impact on well-being. Design and methods: The paper reports the qualitative findings from a large mixed-method study, involving students and staff across primary and secondary schools in three regions of Australia. The qualitative phase involved focus groups with 606 primary and secondary students and individual interviews with 89 teachers and principals. Results: Across the focus groups and interviews, students and teachers placed substantial emphasis on the importance of relationships, while reporting differences in their views about "which" relationships support well-being. Alongside this, there were differences in the importance teachers and students placed on each of the three strands of Honneth's recognition theory (translated for this study as being cared for, respected and valued) for influencing student well-being. Conclusions: The findings affirm the critical role that relationships play in promoting well-being in the context of schools. Using recognition theory to analyse students' and teachers' views and experiences of well-being provides much greater insight into "how" these relationships are enacted--this being through the mutual experience of being cared for, respected and valued--within the context of schools.

In this essay, the author traces the progress of one English teacher (Dana) from her days as a middle school student, to her university work, to her emergence as a teacher. The journey reveals that many mentors along the way contributed to the new teacher's sense of purpose, efficacy, and confidence. It is easy to limit one's thinking about the concept of mentor as the cooperating teacher during student teaching or the assigned mentor teacher during the first year of teaching. In contrast, Dana's journey traces the influences of many mentors, from grandmother to cooperating teacher. The story celebrates the contributions of many and suggests the vulnerability of prospective teachers, who might be discouraged rather than encouraged, who could be distracted rather than inspired.

Purpose: To describe a project that introduces middle school and high school students living in Pennsylvania's rural geographic regions to nursing careers through outreach extended to students regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Method: The authors employed many strategies to inform students about careers in nursing. The methods included: working with guidance counselors, participating in community health fairs, taking part in school health career fairs, collaborating with Area Health Education Centers, serving on volunteer local education advisory boards, developing a health careers resource guide, and establishing a rural health advisory board. Findings: Developing developmentally appropriate programs may have the potential to pique interest in nursing careers in children of all ages, preschool through high school. Publicity is needed to alert the community of kids into health care career programs. Timing is essential when planning visits to discuss health care professions opportunities with middle and high school students. It is important to increase the number of high school student contacts during the fall months. Targeting high school seniors is particularly important as they begin the college applications process and determine which school will best meet their educational goals. Conclusions: Outcome measures to determine the success of health career programs for students in preschool through high school are needed. Evaluation methods will be continued over the coming years to assess effectiveness. (Contains 1 table.)

This article explores children's participation in research, from the perspectives of researchers who have conducted research with children. Researchers' reports, gained using an email interviewing method, suggest that children's participation rights are particularly compromised when the potential child participants are considered vulnerable and the topic of the research is regarded as sensitive. Such perceptions result in stringent gatekeeping procedures that prevent some children from participating in research. This article concludes that children should be viewed, not as vulnerable passive victims, but as social actors who can play a part in the decision to participate in research. Such a view would result in more careful attention to communicating effectively with children about research, and ensuring that they may have a more central role in decision-making about participation. (Contains 4 notes.)

The current study describes the development and psychometric properties of a new measure targeting sensitivity to change of core autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, the Autism Impact Measure (AIM). The AIM uses a 2-week recall period with items rated on two corresponding 5-point scales (frequency and impact). Psychometric properties were examined using a large sample (n = 440) of children with ASD enrolled in the Autism Treatment Network. The exploratory factor analysis indicated four factors and resulted in a 25-item questionnaire with excellent overall model fit. Test-retest reliability, cross-informant reliability, and convergent validity with other measures of ASD symptoms and overall functioning were strong. The AIM is a reliable and valid measure of frequency and impact of core ASD symptoms. Keywords Autism spectrum disorder * Outcome * Treatment * Symptoms * Impairment, Introduction Recent increases in ASD prevalence (Centers for Disease Control 2012; Fombonne 2005) have underscored the immediate and critical need for effective ASD treatments. A number of promising treatments are [...]

Compares adults raised in an original, two-parent family to those raised in other family structures. Results, based on 3,523 individuals, suggest that both men and women from original two-parent families earn more, on average, than those from other family structures. Family structure also rendered different effects by gender. (RJM)

A creative writing program for disadvantaged women in Chicopee, Massachusetts, is described. The program's effects in empowering the women resulted in the women making a number of specific changes in their lives. Reasons for the workshop's success are discussed, as is the power of the arts to effect social change. (DB)

Students read little in high school in comparison to middle and elementary grades. Consequently, this article examines the impact of a book choice program that I implemented with my 12th-grade, multiethnic language arts class. I will discuss (a) the instructional aspects of setting up a book choice program for ethnically diverse readers, (b) descriptive and quantitative findings from surveys and two student interviews, and (c) students' connections to their books through student-led Socratic seminars and creative projects. Of all the themes explored, students had the most meaningful conversations and projects when they explored social inequities. This study concludes that teachers should remain flexible about the content that they teach allowing their students to select their own reading materials. Findings suggest that students bring rich literacies into classrooms that often remain unacknowledged. Book choice is a way for teachers and their students to explore and appreciate students' diverse cultures and experiences., Introduction I am a language arts instructor who teaches at an urban, multi-ethnic high school in Arizona. Ninety percent of our students are of Latino/Latina, Asian, Native American, or African [...]