NCJ Number
192133
Date Published
1999
Length
182 pages
Annotation
This is a report on a review of research that has evaluated the effectiveness of school-based interventions for preventing and reducing violence.
Abstract
Of the 584 studies identified, 174 contained data and were eligible to be included at some level in the current investigation. All of these studies are summarized in an appendix. The types of interventions addressed in the research were administrative techniques (classroom management, building school capacity, etc.); peer mentoring programs; personal growth; self-control; social skills training; peer mediation; educational and academic programs; multimodal programs; and social skills and peer mediation programs. Based on the findings of this review, school-based programs are effective in preventing and reducing violence and other antisocial behaviors. This is done by reducing the mediating conditions and behaviors they seek to alter. All interventions, with the exception of incapacitation, work by altering the presence or trajectory of proximal outcomes that are believed to influence the occasion of the distal outcome that intervention planners aim to avoid. Various method, subject, and implementation variables influenced estimates of program effectiveness. Some of these influences, such as sample similarity, may potentially be controlled by the researcher. Antisocial behavior is a relatively rare phenomena, so ceiling effects probably attenuate many of the estimates of program effectiveness. Programs that experienced fewer implementation problems and lasted longer showed stronger effects than programs with significant implementation problems and shorter duration. 23 references and a full bibliography of 3,411 studies