The impact of a middle school program to reduce aggression, victimization, and sexual violence.
PURPOSE To evaluate the impact of the Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention (SS SSTP) Middle School Program on reducing youth violence including peer aggression, peer victimization, homophobic name calling, and sexual violence perpetration and victimization among middle school sixth grade students. METHODS The study design was a nested cohort (sixth graders) longitudinal study. We randomly assigned 18 matched pairs of 36 middle schools to the SS SSTP or control condition. Teachers implemented 15 weekly lessons of the sixth grade curriculum that focused on social emotional learning skills, including empathy, communication, bully prevention, and problem solving skills. All sixth graders (n 3,616) in intervention and control conditions completed self report measures assessing verbal/relational bullying, physical aggression, homophobic name calling, and sexual violence victimization and perpetration before and after the implementation of the sixth grade curriculum. RESULTS Multilevel analyses revealed significant intervention effects with regard to physical aggression. The adjusted odds ratio indicated that the intervention effect was substantial; individuals in intervention schools were 42% less likely to self report physical aggression than students in control schools. We found no significant intervention effects for verbal/relational bully perpetration, peer victimization, homophobic teasing, and sexual violence. CONCLUSIONS Within a 1 year period, we noted significant reductions in self reported physical aggression in the intervention schools. Results suggest that SS SSTP holds promise as an efficacious prevention program to reduce physical aggression in adolescent youth.
The Journal of adolescent health official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine