The behaviour of adolescents in our society often results in unhealthy or dangerous consequences. Professional practitioners often are ineffective in guiding our youngsters toward positive and healthy behavioural choices because they attempt to address the problem behaviours themselves, rather than the processes through which teens are motivated to make such behavioural choices. Previous research has defined "teenagerhood" as a discrete cultural stage through which many teens pass, and has suggested that their behavioural choices are often motivated by perceptions of "coolness", defined as social attractiveness. This thesis advances these notions, further suggesting they comprise a viable foundation on which to develop further research and practice in our school system, particularly with respect to preventing problems among teens. Written from the stance of an integrative-interpretive review, this paper attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice through developing an ecological overview of teenagerhood and middle-level education. This study examines a wide variety of academic and popular literature pertaining to the culture of coolness, and middle school practice. This paper draws five broad and interrelated conclusions: (a) that there is a need for innovative and appropriate research methods for integrating research and practice in education, particularly concerning ecologically complex issues such as teenagerhood, coolness, and risky behavour; (b) that the problem of youth at risk is both real and serious; (c) that many youngsters need to be cool, and adults working with young adolescents need to understand, respect, and work with that knowledge; (d) that the function and structure of schools must accommodate youngsters' real characteristics, needs, and the contextual imperatives of teenagerhood and coolness; and (e) that the roles and practices of professionals in schools must fit youngsters' real characteristics, needs, and the contextual imperatives of teenager hood and coolness.
The PARTY (Prevent Alcohol Related Trauma in Youth) program is a one-day hospital-based program that targets youth in Grade 10. The programs' intention is to educate youth in the dangers of irresponsible alcohol use and how this contributes to preventable trauma. The study of the PARTY program used a 12-item questionnaire to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in changing youths' risk-taking behaviors. The main objectives were to (a) carry out psychometric analysis of the questionnaire, (b) assess cognitive changes in regards to risk-taking behaviors and beliefs of Grade 10 students three months after completing the PARTY program, and (c) assess gender, location, and school structure differences in risk-taking behaviors and beliefs. The study utilized a mixed design as the program is using a pre-and post-program survey for data collection. The study sample consisted of Grade 10 students from senior and junior secondary schools in the School District 57 region that included one rural senior secondary school, three urban senior secondary schools, one urban junior secondary school and a private senior secondary school. Two of the schools had an insufficient number of participants completing all three times of measurement and were not included in analyses involving individual schools. A total of280 students completed the first questionnaire and of those 162 (57.8%) completed all three times of measure and were used in the study. Results indicate that the PARTY program has a positive effect on the risk-taking behaviors and beliefs of urban girls and boys, and rural girls attending senior secondary schools. The PARTY program showed no significant effect on the risk-taking behaviors and beliefs of junior secondary boys and girls, or rural boys.
