Research Jan T'Sas

Abstract

Since the rise of freely accessible pornographic streaming websites, porn consumption (PC) has become normative and widespread across most parts of the world. The rate of teenagers being exposed to pornography before the age of 13 has tripled over the last decade. The majority of young men masturbate several times a week (and even daily) with the help of pornography. PC can have a positive impact on body satisfaction, self- exploration and self-esteem but little evidence about the effects of PC on sexual development and later wellbeing is available. However, some negative (not necessarily proven ) information about pornography created a moral panic in several societies. The Flemish child help line receives regular calls of young people having difficulty to deal with pornrelated issues. Flemish students expressed the need for information and education about pornography related matters as early as possible. Care-providers see an important increase in young people consulting with (self-perceived porn induced) sexual dysfunctions. Our discussions with young people of diverse backgrounds made clear they need and want help in navigating the sexual explicit media they consume, especially in contexts where teachers and parents find it difficult to communicate about this. Further, in order to understand why some AYA's struggle, we further want to understand the impact of pornography consumption (or sudden abstinence from) in relation to young peoples' SWb in health care contexts. Our multidisciplinary multistakeholder project on sexual wellbeing (SWb) of Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) in the ethnically and sexually diverse society of Flanders will advance the knowledge in this polarized field. Given the increasing uptake of PC in our diverse society it's time that these issues are studied thoroughly and results implemented in lesson plans and applications in order to improve the SWb of AYA.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Win Gunter
• Co-promoter: Glazemakers Inge
• Co-promoter: T'Sas Jan
• Co-promoter: Van Hal Guido
• Co-promoter: Vermandel Alexandra
• Co-promoter: Walrave Michel

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Surgical Training, Anatomy and Research Centre (ASTARC)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

International and national tests indicate that the reading skills of pupils from the work-oriented and transfer finality are below the desired level. Several meta-analyses indicate that instruction in writing skills has a positive impact on students' reading comprehension (Graham & Hebert, 2011; Graham et al., 2017; Graham & Santangelo, 2014). The Reading Offensive therefore introduces author residencies at a selection of schools with these pupils. To maximize the impact of the author residency project, we are introducing the ambassador concept. Teachers who participate in the author residencies undertake to act as ambassadors for fellow teachers who were unable to participate in the author residencies in the following months (maximum 18 months). These fellow teachers do not receive author visits at school, but do use the programs developed within the author residencies project. In this way we aspire to create a network of teachers, so that the insights from the programs are efficiently disseminated. The central research question of this project is therefore: To what extent does the author residencies project have an impact on the reading and writing education of the participating schools? Ultimately, the Reading Offensive expects that the author residencies and the role of ambassador will have an impact on the views of the teachers (and the didactics they apply) and the language competence of their students. For this specific target group of students, functional writing skills are an illustrative example of this language competence. Based on this, we can formulate the following research questions: 1) To what extent does the author residencies project have an impact on the project teachers (the so-called ambassadors)? a. To what extent is there an impact on the views on language teaching of these teachers? b. To what extent is there an impact on the language didactics used by the teachers? c. To what extent is there a difference in views on language teaching between the ambassadors and fellow teachers? 2) To what extent does the author residencies project have an impact on the students in the project? a. To what extent is there an impact on the literary, resp. functional writing skills of the students? b. To what extent is there an impact on students' beliefs about reading and writing?

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Casteleyn Jordi
• Co-promoter: T'Sas Jan

Research team(s)

• Didactica

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project