Evidence Rating for Outcomes
Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors | Aggression |
Date:
This practice consists of programs designed to prevent or reduce aggressive or violent behavior in K–12 students who are considered at risk of or who have demonstrated such antisocial behaviors. The practice is rated Effective for reducing aggression in students who participated in school-based violence prevention programs, compared with students who did not participate.
Practice Goals/Target Population
Research has shown that youth violence and related aggressive behaviors, such as bullying or antisocial behavior, can be risk factors for later adult violence (Mytton et al. 2006). According to the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, nearly a quarter of U.S. high school students reported getting into a physical fight in the previous year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Selective school-based violence prevention programs (also known as secondary violence prevention programs) target specific students in grades K–12, compared with universal violence prevention programs, which are implemented with all students in a school or classroom. The overall goal of these programs is to prevent or reduce violence and aggression schoolchildren.
Services Provided
Selective school-based violence prevention programs vary in their components, approaches, and scope. Specific components may include anger control training, anger management, stress inoculation, individual counseling, mentoring, parent training, life skills, peer-group conflict management, coping skills training, cognitive skills training, empathy training, problem-solving skills training, and conflict management training (Mytton et al. 2002).
Programs can be implemented based on theoretical approaches, rooted in established psychological theories of behavior (Park-Higgerson et al. 2008). For example, some programs are based on attribution theory, which proposes that aggressive and hostile behavior stems from outward motivators (e.g., negative actions of others that are perceived as intentional). These programs seek to reduce aggressive behavior by teaching youth how to control and manage anger when these motivators occur (Herrmann and McWhirter 2003). Other programs are built on social cognitive theory, which suggests that learning occurs through a social context by observing outside interactions and experience. Following on to this theory, these programs often involve elements of role play and modeling (Park-Higgerson et al. 2008).
The scope of the intervention may also vary from program to program. For instance, single-approach programs focus solely on implementing a curriculum in the classroom, whereas multiple-approach programs involve other aspects of the students’ lives and can include parents, peers, and members of the community in violence prevention efforts.
School-based interventions are often led by the child’s classroom teacher, but specialists can also come into the classroom to lead the program while the teacher assists.
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Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors | Aggression
Across seven randomized controlled trials, Mytton and colleagues (2006) found a statistically significant effect size of 0.4 for aggression at the 12-month follow up. This finding indicates that students who participated in selective violence prevention programs displayed less aggression, compared with students who did not participate in the programs. Conversely, looking at the results from 19 randomized controlled trials, Park-Higgerson and colleagues (2008) did not find any statistically significant impacts on measures of aggression and violence between students who participated in selective violence prevention programs, compared with students who did not participate. |
Mytton and colleagues (2006) conducted subgroup analyses to examine the effect of selective violent prevention programs on younger children (11 years and younger), compared with older youth (12 years and older). They found that there were no statistically significant differences between younger and older children on measures of aggression scale scores, which suggests that the effectiveness of the programs does not differ by age.
These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:
Mytton, Julie A., Carolyn DiGuiseppi, David Gough, Rod S. Taylor, and Stuart Logan. 2006. “School-Based Secondary Prevention Programmes for Preventing Violence.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 3:1–72. View abstract
Park-Higgerson, Hyoun-Kyoung, Suzanne E. Perumean-Chaney, Alfred A. Bartolucci, Diane M. Grimley, and Karan P. Singh. 2008. "The Evaluation of School-Based Violence Prevention Programs: A Meta-Analysis." Journal of School Health 78(9): 465–79. View abstract
These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. “High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey: United States 2017 Results.”
Herrmann, D. Scott, and J. Jeffries McWhirter. 2003. “Anger and Aggression Management in Young Adolescents: An Experimental Validation of the SCARE Program.” Education and Treatment of Children 26(3):273–302.
Mytton, Julie A., Carolyn DiGuiseppi, David A. Gough, Rod S. Taylor, and Stuart Logan. 2002. “School-Based Violence Prevention Programs: Systematic Review of Secondary Prevention Trials.” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 156:752–62.
Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:
Age: 4 - 18
Gender: Male, Female
Setting (Delivery): School
Practice Type: Classroom Curricula, School/Classroom Environment, Violence Prevention
Unit of Analysis: Persons