NCJ Number
182760
Date Published
1999
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This review of literature on school violence focuses on the extent of the problem, promising school violence programs that are empirically based, major conceptual problems pertaining to school violence research and interventions, common components of successful school violence programs, and a procedure for developing interventions.
Abstract
Students tend to report higher rates of violence than do teachers or principals. Teachers are also victims of both theft and violent crimes. Ineffective interventions to prevent or reduce school violence focus on only one or two variables or ecological levels, have a psychological focus, do not account for the school social structure, and focus on deficits in individual children or subpopulations. Few evaluations have assessed the effectiveness of interventions that schools normally use. Promising programs include school-based bully and victim intervention programs, high-quality early childhood education, the Peace Builders program, the Positive Adolescents Choices Training program. A useful procedure that can contribute to the success of grassroots strategies is the mapping of schools for violence. The mapping process documents the locations and times within each school where violence occurred for a given school term, as well as the perspectives of students, teachers, staff, and administrators on the school’s responses. Tables, figure, and 112 references