School Psychology International

Research on the social context of bullying includes children who help the victim, assist the bully or remain outsiders. 96 children from two public schools in Central Italy were classified according to an Italian version of the Participant Role Scale (Sutton and Smith, 1999) as Defenders of the Victim, Outsiders, Victims or Pro-bullies. Teacher reports indicated Friendliness and Emotional Instability as the strongest distinguishing personality factors among the participant roles, followed by Conscientiousness and Energy. Higher levels of Emotional Instability and lower levels of Friendliness typified both Pro-bullies and Victims, relative to their peers. Victims were also low in Conscientiousness. Defenders exhibited high levels of Friendliness, whereas Introversion and Independence characterized Outsiders. These results suggest that personality traits might contribute to children's typical behaviour in bullying situations.

Examples of teasing, bullying and sexual harassment were collected from 147 secondary school students to determine how students distinguish among these forms of peer victimization. The inclusion of physical and sexual behaviours, references to fun/play, repetition of victimization, the number and gender of the actors, the gender of the targets, gender difference between the actors and targets and reasons for victimization were dependent upon victimization category. Few example elements were related to participants' gender or school. The results are discussed in relation to researchers' definitions of teasing, bullying and sexual harassment.

This study examined a sample of 45 emails written by adults in response to an Internet article on how to help children develop resilience and cope with hardship in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Most of the sample's recommendations for helping children achieve these goals were similar to those promoted by organizations like the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). However, the sample responses failed to include school-based support services, suggesting that schools (and other community organizations) may need to increase parental awareness of their services. Limitations of the current study and implications of the use of email data in research are discussed.

The main objective of this research is to test the universal nature of stress and coping behaviour among overseas college students in China and to provide basic information towards understanding the problems that result from stress and coping which can best be defined in cultural terms. The sample consisted of 83 students from Africa and 76 students from Western countries attending eleven universities in China. Results indicated that academic and interpersonal sources of stress were the most common stressors perceived by the two groups. High levels of pressures and challenges perceived by both African and Western student were classified as daily hassles. No group differences existed in subtotal perceptions of interpersonal, intrapersonal, academic and environmental stressors. Group variations existed only in their sub-divisional areas of stress. Minor differences in perception of stressors such as attaining lower grades, missing too many classes and working with unfamiliar people were observed between male and female students. In comparison to African students, Western students demonstrated the highest ability to cope with stress. The two groups differed on the level of most measures, with Western subjects scoring higher on all seven sub-scales. On the coping scale, they did best on `ability to relax'. Both African and Western students scored lowest on `the resourceful coping' scale. Significant differences were observed between Western and African students in four out of the seven sub-scales measured. No differences were found between men and women in their ways of coping with stress in China.

In recent years, large numbers of grandparents have become full-time surrogate parents to their grandchildren. These grandparents and grandchildren often have serious problems that may require assistance from schools and mental health professionals. The term `grandfamily' is used to easily identify families where grandparents raise children because their biological parents can no longer care for them. `Grandkin' are children and `supergrands' are the grandparents in these grandfamilies. Grandparents who raise their grandchildren tend to have elevated levels of stress that negatively impact their well-being. School personnel report `grandkin' also experience behavioural, emotional and academic problems at school. In light of the substantial needs of `grandfamilies' and the lack of data about `grandkin,' this article provides a first step in describing the major challenges experienced by a grandson and his grandmother. This `grandfamily' encounters serious economic, emotional and educational stressors. Both the grandson and grandmother experience difficulty functioning under the pressure of stressors and would benefit from an integrated intervention approach based in the home, school and their faith organization.

In this study of the access process in analogical problem solving, preschoolers, first graders and third graders repeatedly listened to a variety of similar types of source stories until they could recall them completely. They then listened to a target story, were asked to retrieve the source story, were directed to solve a problem in a target story and to verify their responses. We found the following developmental differences: (1) the child could not access structural similarity at all; or the child could not maintain it until he/she reached a solution to the problem; (2) the child did not access structural similarity at first, but he/she re-accessed it during later processes of problem solving; (3) the child accessed structural similarity from the first and was able to maintain it with sound analogy. We described hypothetical reasons for such differences in analogical problem solving and provided suggestions for further research.

Eshel and Koriat (2001) have suggested that training programs for school psychologists possess both a manifest (`formal') and latent (`informal') curriculum pertaining to the enhancement of both technical competencies and more autonomous professional functioning, respectively. In addition to influencing coursework, the informal curriculum also shapes the manner in which training programs provide supervision. Although effective supervision is believed to lead to more effective school psychology practice, much of the literature has emphasized the technical skills which supervision aims to improve. Little has been written about the nature of group supervision for school psychologists in training, especially from the standpoint of utilizing a more process-oriented approach as a vehicle for realizing the informal curriculum. In organizing the supervisor's approach to running such a group, the following theoretical models may prove effective: attachment theory, object relations theory, group theory and self psychology. Case examples will be discussed in order to illustrate the application of these theoretical frameworks to the supervisory process. Ethical challenges to running supervision groups within a training program will also be discussed.