Cyberbullying is a pervasive social problem that affects young adolescent girls more than any other demographic. Despite empirical evidence showing young adolescent girls are vulnerable to the problem, research in the field is slow in coming and cyberbullying interventions specifically designed for girls are underdeveloped. The research discussed in this chapter demonstrates that current intervention strategies such as blocking, reporting, and telling a trusted adult are only partially effective in helping girls manage cyberbullying. In this design-based research, anecdotes from young adolescent girls demonstrate that personal feelings and friendship expectations play a significant role in how they respond to cyberbullying events. Moreover, the effects of cyberbullying have a significant impact on the emotional well-being of girls in this age group. Study findings have implications for cyberbullying intervention programs and health and well-being agendas. Offered are recommendations for school-level interventions.

There is growing interest in the incorporation of digital games as part of the suite of offerings in museum education in heritage environments. Digital games are seen as ways of recreating historic worlds, affording empathetic and affective engagement, and increasing interest in and understanding of historical periods or processes, working in complementarity with material exhibitions and artefacts on display. Stakeholders engaged in the development of digital games, however, may have different views of what constitutes significant knowledge and priorities. This paper reports on findings from a pilot study that investigated key concerns for three groups involved in designing a game - museum educators, maritime archaeologists and games designers - that foregrounded the construction of history, history as constructed and processes of historical research. The paper explores the differing values and priorities underlying the perspectives of each group, and the implications of these for museum education, and the design of the game.

Cyberbullying is a serious social problem with negative health and wellbeing consequences for young people. Teachers have an important role to play in intervention activities because they are often first responders to cyberbullying events. This paper presents 10 teachers' workarounds to cyberbullying intervention. The vignettes drawn from interview data show teachers recognise cyberbullying as a significant concern for young people. However, in their reporting, there is no uniform approach taken. Instead, each teacher describes a unique set of practices for cyberbullying intervention that are not always aligned to intervention frameworks. While a mix of factors determines their uptake of recommended interventions, the key to each teacher's workaround is the level of frustration, annoyance and worry they experienced in relation to cyberbullying. The research demonstrates intervention frameworks need to rethink the role teachers play in cyberbullying intervention, provide greater support and guidance for managing student distress in relation to cyberbullying, and address the frustration experienced by teachers in relation to their intervention responsibilities.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of online conferencing platforms for focus group discussions with teenage girls. Design/methodology/approach The paper discusses the use of online conferencing for focus group discussions with Australian teenage girls aged 12–14 years who were participating in a study about their online interaction with friends. It examines both the practical application of online conferencing as a qualitative method as well as the inherent challenges of this context for youth research. Design decisions are explained and methods for ensuring rich contribution are detailed. Findings Online conferencing offers three distinct advantages for focus group work. First, the environment consciously engages participants in spontaneous interaction with other participants by using communication tools familiar to them. Second, elaborated discussion can be stimulated by introducing ideas and trends through visual mediums and artefacts. Third, the virtual setting provides remote access by the researcher which shifts power relationships so discussions flow more naturally between participants. Practical implications Outcomes indicate that online conferencing is an effective method for encouraging participants to share ideas and experiences about aspects of their lives that are often private and/or sensitive. Originality/value Technological advances in online collaboration tools have resulted in an increased use of online conferencing platforms across disciplines especially for teaching and learning contexts. However, application of online conferencing for focus group discussions with young people has not received much attention. Research presented here demonstrates that it is a useful tool for engaging teenage girls in focus group discussions.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest how well-being messages are recontextualized into school-based contexts from an analysis of national policy and state curricular approaches to health education as reported in the findings of two selected case studies as well as community concerns about young people’s well-being.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional review of Australian federal and state-level student well-being policy documents was undertaken. Using two case examples of school-based in-curricular well-being programs, the paper explores how discourses from these well-being policy documents are recontextualized through progressive fields of translation and pedagogic decision making into local forms of curriculum.FindingsPedagogic messages about well-being in Australia are often extra-curricular, in that they are rarely integrated into one or across existing subject areas. Such messages are increasingly focused on mental health, around phenomena such as bullying. Both case examples clearly demonstrate how understandings of well-being respond to various power relations and pressures emanating from stakeholders within and across official pedagogic fields and other contexts such as local communities.Originality/valueThe paper focusses on presenting an adaptation of Bernstein’s (1990) model of social reproduction of pedagogic discourse. The adapted model demonstrates how “top-down” knowledge production from the international disciplines shaping curriculum development and pedagogic approaches can be replaced by community context-driven political pressure and perceived community crises. It offers contemporary insight into youth-at-risk discourses, well-being approaches and student mental health.

There is considerable enthusiasm in many quarters for the incorporation of digital games into the classroom, and the capacity of games to engage and challenge players, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative learning, and promote deep learning. But while there is increasing research documenting the progress and outcomes of game-based learning, relatively little attention is paid to student perceptions and voice. In order to effectively target game-based learning pedagogy, it is important to understand students' previous experience, if any, of the use of games in the classroom, and what they made of these. In this paper, we present findings from a survey of 270 primary and secondary school students in Year Levels 4-9 (aged 9-14) in 6 Queensland schools at the start of a 3-year Australian Research Council project researching the use of digital games in school to promote literacy and learning.

Teachers' beliefs about what it is (or is not) possible to achieve with digital games in educational contexts will inevitably influence the decisions that they make about how, when, and for what specific purposes they will bring these games into their classrooms. They play a crucial role in both shaping and responding to the complex contextual factors which influence how games are understood and experienced in educational settings. Throughout this article the authors draw upon data collected for a large-scale, mixed-methods research project focusing on literacy, learning and teaching with digital games in Australian classrooms, to focus explicitly on the attitudes, understandings and expectations held about digital games by diverse teachers at the beginning of the project. They seek to identify the beliefs about games that motivated teachers' participation in a digital games research project while focusing, as well, on concerns that teachers express about risks or limitations of such a project. The authors' aim is to develop a detailed picture of the mindsets that teachers bring to games-based learning environments, and the relevance of these mindsets to broader debates about the relationship between games, learning and school.

Significant efforts worldwide have gone into developing cybersafety education for young people. In many countries, key government bodies, community organisations, charity groups and school sectors have engaged in program and curriculum development with the aim of improving students’ cybersafety awareness and digital literacy. In Australia, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) delivers cybersafety programs, presentations and resources to teachers, librarians, children, parents, carers and other community members through its Cybersmart branding, including the Cybersmart Outreach Program. Drawing on data from the 2011 evaluation of the effectiveness of the ACMA Cybersmart Outreach Program in schools, this paper discusses distinctions between what junior secondary students rated as ‘easy’ and what is ‘important’ in relation to managing online safety, and proposes that closer attention to this distinction might present useful guidance for this age group in the development of future education programs.

Chapter 7 examines the relationship between learning and teaching and the behaviour of students. It discusses the important connection among behaviour, mental health and academic success and considers the challenging issue of how to manage behaviour change in the classroom. A key focus of this chapter is considering ways to develop a safe learning environment that will reduce challenging behaviours while ensuring student success. To do this the concept of Positive behavioural Support is introduced as a means of making adaptations and accommodations for challenging behaviours such as those that accompany conditions including Attention Deficit Disorder.

Promoting and fostering the health and welfare of school children is rapidly becoming a worldwide concern. For example, in Europe, the ongoing World Health Organization's 'Health Behaviour in School-age Children' (HBSC) studies are undertaken on the premise that our future rests heavily on looking after the health of young people and this encompasses physical, emotional and social wellbeing, which in turn results in long-term benefits for individuals and society (Currie et al. 2004). Moreover, national and state governments in Australia acknowledge the link between student health and wellbeing, academic success and safe and supportive learning environments through the National Safe Schools Framework (Australian Government 2007). An ongoing concern for the welfare of young people has led to extensive research into supportive school-based programs. Significantly, contemporary programs that aim to improve student health and welfare at school also emphasise the role of parents and the community. Positioning the health and welfare of young people into the networked school community therefore aligns well with our encouragement for creating a home-school nexus.