School drug use has been attributed to the annual suspension of thousands of secondary adolescents, subsequently contributing to poor academics, low graduation rates, and continued school drug use. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences of former adolescents who engaged in school drug use. Social learning theory suggests that behaviors observed from within the environment may later be modeled. Using Bandura's social learning theory, 10 participants, 18 years old and older responded to open-ended questions about how they processed school drug use. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the responses to the open-ended questions were coded and analyzed. Bandura's social learning theory supports the key findings. Findings indicated that former students reported being influenced by their environment and others around them, such as friends. Additional findings from the study suggest that boredom was another reason students engaged in school drug use. While a few students enrolled in a new school after being suspended for school drug use, the findings suggest that out-of-school suspensions are not meaningful to students. After returning to school from their suspension, students felt behind in their school work. Implications for social change include understanding potential influences of school drug use on students and their environment. This understanding can benefit schools, parents, and the community through interventions and proactive measures that target school drug use among adolescents.

With an increase in diagnosis rates of autism in Trinidad, more parents of children with autism, especially single fathers, face numerous challenges on a daily basis. There is a lack of research on this topic and therefore an inadequate understanding of the experiences of Trinidadian single fathers as primary caregivers for children with autism. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and depict the lived experiences of single fathers of children with autism. Social support theory was the guiding conceptual framework to explore and understand how single fathers effectively manage their daily challenges. Ten single fathers from Southern Trinidad were recruited through criterion sampling and they engaged in semi-structured interviews individually. Moustakas's steps to phenomenological analysis were used to analyze the data. There were seven major themes that emerged from describing the lived experience of single fathers of children with autism: (a) challenges, (b) social support systems, (c) day-to-day experiences, (d) the role of the father within the family, (e) effects on social life, (f) sibling reactions, and (g) adaptive coping mechanisms. This study may engender social change, as the findings may be used to support single fathers to continue to provide care for their children. This study could result in improved understanding and support for their children both at home, in school, and in the community. The findings will be available to other fathers who share similar experiences. Special education service providers may gain further information to improve their services to families of children with disabilities.

Reentry programs have been demonstrated to reduce recidivism. These same programs experience high attrition rates that degrade effectiveness and reduce capacity. Recidivism rates are reported as over 77% after 5 years from release which negatively impact society, victims and the released offenders. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to examine recently released offenders' insights regarding attrition from reentry programs to provide program administrators with themes that may be useful in addressing attrition. Social learning theory was used to frame the study. Audio recordings were collected during semistructured interviews with 21 reentry program participants. The recordings were transcribed and organized by stage and individual participant. The data was then coded to develop emergent themes about attrition. The themes were unawareness of reentry programs, inefficient learning processes, and lack of cooperative relationships. The themes that offer insight into the self-reported feelings were optimism turns to frustration when learned skills do not provide the expected outcomes and willingness to inform others about the reentry program. Results may provide reentry program administrators with insights to improve the design and execution of reentry programs to facilitate completion by high-risk offenders, which may lower the risk of recidivism.

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Traditional help services have problems reaching out to people with substance abuseproblems. Some individuals choose to seek help for recovery from anonymous others online.This study examines the social support within an online support group for individualssuffering from drug abuse, specifically, the drug rehabilitation forum on the Internetcommunity Flashback forum. By looking at the social support in the forum through aqualitative content analysis nine forum threads have been examined. To seek help from otherswithout the pressure of going straight edge as well as an easily accessible tool for differentstages of the process of recovery, the Internet community and forum is an alternative helpchannel and/or complement to traditional services and support. The study also shows that, aswell as social learning theory can explain how individuals begin drug abuse, the theory canalso shed light on how individuals learn to stop their drug abuse.

Research has unearthed an abundance of objectification and hypersexualization of female characters within video games. However, the recurring element of the damsel in distress trope is also harmful to the medium. This cliché of a helpless princess in need of a man to save her is a recurring element of The Legend of Zelda series. This experimental design tested the effects of a prototypical œsave the princess mission on players agreement to sexist statements on gender roles, objectification, and female dependency, and examined the factors of self-efficacy and gamer status as potential mediators. Participants played a modified version of a classic Legend of Zelda game, where the genders of the hero protagonist and damsel are manipulated. This 2 x 2 study included male and female heroes rescuing male and female victims in the four different cells. Immediately following the experiment, participants then took a post-test survey to gauge if there was any difference on their agreement to sexist statements. These results were also compared to their previous responses on their self-efficacy scores and their gamer status.

Late adolescence and early emerging adulthood are important developmental time periods during which transitions to adulthood begins including independence from one's parents. While adolescents spend more time away from their homes, especially as they start attending college, the influence of their parents is still salient. Parental psychological control has been shown to impact adolescents' developmental outcomes, including their engagement in relational aggression. While past research has focused mostly on children and young adolescents, the current study seeks to explore the bidirectional associations between parental psychological control and relational aggression among late adolescents and early emerging adults. It also seeks to explore adolescent sex as a potential moderator. Using the Flourishing Families Project data, the results revealed that across ages 16-19, there were significant bidirectional associations. However, there were no sex differences. Several important implications as well as suggestions for future studies are drawn.

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