The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 stresses the importance of offering all students an inclusive, quality education, so that they can develop necessary life skills, including academic and social skills. Students with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) not only have greater difficulties in their academic development, but they also have some social development limitations. It is therefore necessary to identify which strategies are effective in helping these students develop social skills. Previous research has noted that dialogical learning environments can contribute to promoting inclusion. This paper provides a literature review of interventions, based on social interaction and their impact on the social skills of students with disabilities. A literature search was performed of scientific databases (Web of Science, SCOPUS, PsycINFO and ERIC) to identify research that used dialogue and interaction to promote the development of the social skills of these students. Twenty-nine studies were selected that yielded improved results in the increase and quality of interactions and the promotion of social behaviours, such as initiations, participation, collaboration, social connection, self-regulation and self-image. Based on these results, it can be concluded that interaction-based interventions with an inclusive approach nurture the social skills of students with disabilities, in line with previous research.

Research in psychology has evidenced both the important prevalence of gender-based violence among youth worldwide, and the negative impacts that such violence has on the victims’ mental and physical health. Neuroscience has proven that violent intimate relationships harm the brain, while very simple social experiences can change brain architecture in positive directions. Also, interventions which have demonstrated successful in preventing and responding to gender violence in adolescence have been informed by psychology. This article reviews the social impact of psychology in the field of teen gender violence to later report the potential social impact achieved by an intervention study consisting of seven interventions framed by the research line on preventive socialization of gender violence. The program was addressed to 15 and 16-year-old adolescents and focused on supporting free reconstruction of mental and affective models of attractiveness via critical analysis of the dominant coercive discourse, which links attraction to violence. The communicative methodology involved working with an Advisory Committee since the beginning of the study, as well as continuous dialogue between the researchers and the participants, which was used to refine subsequent interventions. The results show that the program contributed to raise participants’ critical consciousness regarding the dominant coercive discourse in their life, provided the participant subjects with cognitive tools to better understand theirs and others’ sexual-affective thinking, emotions and behaviors, in favor of rejecting violence, and the interventions supported modifying the sexual preferences of female adolescents. Importantly, the findings also indicate that the interventions aided some participants’ use of the knowledge gained in the project to help their friends and communities in reflecting upon coercive patterns of sexual attraction, about the quality of their intimate relationships and their different effect on health. Some individuals reported leaving toxic relationships afterwards. This intervention research illustrates Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s metaphor employed to explain plasticity, as every person, if s/he decides it, can be architect of her or his own brain. With evidence-based cognitive tools at the reach of every adolescent, and upon individual free choice for transformation, a new sexual-affective socialization free from violence is possible.

Violence in sexual-affective relationships among teens and young people is recognized as a social, educational, and health problem that has increased worldwide in recent years. Educational institutions, as central developmental contexts in adolescence, are key in preventing and responding to gender violence through implementing successful actions. In order to scientifically support that task, the research reported in this article presents and discusses a psycho-educational intervention focused on autobiographical memory reconstruction that proved to be successful in raising young women’s critical consciousness about the force of the coercive discourse upon sexual-affective experiences and memories. We examined among a sample of young women (n = 32, age range 17–30) whether reading a scholarly text about love, the Radical Love book, modified autobiographical memories of violent sexual-affective relationships in line with preventing future victimization. This group was compared with a control group (n = 31, age range 17–30). Memory reports were collected before and after the reading and coded to analyze their content, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Memory quality features were assessed with the Memory Quality Questionnaire (MMQ). A focus group was also conducted to examine the personal impact of the intervention on participants. Compared with controls, the experimental group had stronger critical memories (of episodes involving violence), an average decrease in positive emotions induced by recall, and an average increase in negative emotions. The results show the effectiveness of the reading intervention designed in relation to gender violence prevention, as they indicate the ability of the psycho-educational action to debilitate the force of the coercive discourse in young women’s memories. The findings both advance knowledge on the reconstructive nature of autobiographical memories of violent sexual-affective relationships in female youth and indicate the potential of memory-based interventions as an instrument to prevent and reduce gender violence in school contexts. Teachers and teaching staff, and educational psychologists, among others, can benefit from these results by expanding the tools they have to address gender violence among female adolescents and youth.

The deep-rooted changes that have taken place in the media world over recent years have brought about changes in both television itself and in the relationships established with this medium. Consequently, it is important to understand how young people watch television today, in order to design strategies to help them develop the capacities they require to ensure responsible use. With this aim, the present study analyzes the television viewing habits of 553 adolescents (267 boys and 286 girls), aged between 14 and 19, from Ireland, Spain and Mexico. Through the implementation of two questionnaires (CH-TV 0.2 and VAL-TV 0.2), four viewing patterns were detected that can be generalized to all the contexts studied. Two of these patterns clearly distinguish between boys (critical-cultural) and girls (social-conversational), with boys viewing more cultural and information-oriented programs, and girls tending to watch shows with a view to talking about them later with their friends. Two of the variables which best distinguish between the other two patterns identified are the perception of a conflictive climate (conflictive-passive viewing) and the perception of responsible parental mediation (committed-positive viewing). Moreover, preferred television genre was found to be the factor with the greatest discriminatory power in relation to these patterns, while time spent watching television, perceived realism and cultural context were not found to be significant. Los profundos cambios acaecidos en la configuración del contexto mediático en los últimos tiempos, han generado cambios tanto en el medio televisivo como en las relaciones establecidas con él. Es por ello que, resulta necesario conocer cómo consumen la televisión los jóvenes actuales en aras de crear estrategias que ayuden a capacitarlos en la utilización de este medio. Con este fin, en esta investigación se han estudiado las pautas de consumo televisivo de 553 adolescentes (267 chicos y 286 chicas) de Irlanda, España y México, de edades comprendidas entre 14 y 19 años. Mediante la aplicación de dos cuestionarios (CH-TV 0.2 y VAL-TV 0.2), se han podido detectar cuatro pautas de consumo generalizables a todos los contextos estudiados. Dos de estas pautas, diferencian el consumo entre hombres (Crítico-Cultural) y mujeres (Social-Conversacional), siendo ellos los que realizan un consumo más cultural e informativo y ellas, más dirigido a entablar conversación con sus amistades. En lo que a las otras dos pautas se refiere, la percepción de un clima conflictivo (consumo Conflictivo-Pasivo) o la de una mediación responsable (consumo Comprometido-Positivo) son algunas de las variables que marcan las diferencias. Además, se han detectado aquellos factores que presentan mayor poder discriminativo en la configuración de estas pautas, siendo la preferencia mostrada hacia los géneros televisivos el factor más discriminante entre los estudiados. Sin embargo, la permanencia, el realismo percibido y el contexto cultural no han resultado ser determinantes.

The health consequences of gender violence, a global health and social problem, are increasingly studied. Among its roots, research has identified a coercive dominant discourse imposing the idea that masculinities and relationships marked by abuse and domination are more attractive than egalitarian ones. To prevent the health consequences of gender violence, it is necessary to understand the factors that lead many adolescents to fall into it. This study aims to identify the specific mechanisms by which the coercive dominant discourse manifests in the peer group and its consequences for adolescents. Forty-one 15- and 16-year-old female adolescents from three high schools in Barcelona participated in the study. Eight communicative discussion groups were conducted to deepen on participants’ perceptions regarding how peer interactions promote the learning of attraction to violence in sexual-affective relationships. The results show that the participants perceived and experienced different types of coercion to have violent relationships in their peer group interactions. Those interactions fostered the reproduction of the association between sexual-affective attraction and males with aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Many peers coerce others to have disdainful hookups which have very negative health consequences for the victims, including suicidal ideation and committing suicide. Some peer groups become a risk developmental context for female adolescents as far as they foster the coercive dominant discourse, push some young women to engage in violent sporadic relationships, and even harass some others afterwards. This clarifies the importance of peer group-level interventions when addressing the health consequences of gender violence in adolescence.