The whole-school approach to bullying prevention is predicated on the assumption that bullying is a systemic problem, and, by implication, that intervention must be directed at the entire school context rather than just at individual bullies and victims. Unfortunately, recent meta-analyses that have looked at various bullying programs from many countries have revealed that whole-school interventions designed to combat bullying have had limited success in reducing bullying. The purpose of the present study was to establish more clearly the precise aspects of school climate that are linked specifically to the problem of bullying. We used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyse school-level effects in a data set consisting of 18,222 students from across France. For physical and verbal/relational bullying, the final models respectively explain 6% and 16% of the within-school variance, and 48% and 9% of the between-school variance, significant between-school effects, with the climate variables of school security and the quality of student-teacher relationships emerging as the strongest predictors.

Eighteen elementary school children assessed the pleasantness and perfumed aspect of familiar peers' odors, sampled through tee shirts worn without modification of hygienic habits. The participants were also requested to categorize the odors by sex and to recognize those of several target classmates varying in sex and socioemotional status (the participant's most preferred classmate vs. a mere acquaintance). The ratings of odors by familiar peers appeared consistent with those obtained from nonfamiliar peers and adults and varied according to the sex of wearer of the tee shirts. For the five categories of peers examined, as well as for the participants themselves, olfactory recognition was better than chance. Moreover, it was higher for the same-sex preferred peers than for the others only for the female perceivers. The results are discussed in terms of their behavioral relevance for peer relationships, focusing especially on (a) the relations between sex differences in odors and gender development and (b) the function of olfactory memory in the emotional regulation of friendships.

No abstract

One thousand two hundred seventy-two French children aged 8-9 years old participated in a study aimed at identifying predictors of healthy eating intention. We used a survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Regression analyses were performed to assess the extent to which the extended TPB variables explained intention to eat healthily. The results indicated that attitude, parental norms, friend's norms, knowledge, motivation to conform to friends' and parental norms and perceived behavioral control accounted for 35% of the variance of intention to eat healthily. The most important predictor in this study was perceived as behavioral control.