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School Violence Prevention
Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders
Marcus
tells his friends he wants to "outdo Columbine" and
begins to collect magazine articles about terrorism. He starts
to dress in black and talks about building a bomb.
On her
way to school Anna sees two girls taunting one another, surrounded
by a dozen other students. She notices that one of
the girls begins to push the other girl and then pull her hair.
As school officials around the country strive to become more
savvy about handling violence, they are zeroing in on the critical
role
of "bystanders":
the confidantes of violent youth or those who are present when violence occurs.
In most cases of school violence, peers knew beforehand about a planned attack,
notes Ron Slaby, a senior scientist in EDC's Health
and Human Development Programs. In many cases of averted school violence, he adds, bystanders saw
a red flag and took action that effectively prevented a tragedy.
"Traditionally," says Slaby, "school interventions were focused
exclusively on the aggressor. We used to wag our fingers at them, saying 'don't
do that.'" Slaby developed the acclaimed Aggressors,
Victims, and Bystanders(AVB) curriculum, which aims to change the roles students play in potentially
violent situations. The majority of students are not aggressors, according to
Slaby. Most students-in fact, most people-are bystanders to violence. "We
are a nation of bystanders," he says. Typically, bystanders passively accept
violence, or they overtly encourage it. Both responses, suggests Slaby, are habitual
patterns of thought and behavior established long ago.
The goal of AVB is to change those patterns and to teach young
people to become "nonviolent
problem solvers" instead. In that role, they can change the course of
volatile situations at school. Rather than circle a fight cheering, "Fight,
fight, fight," nonviolent problem solvers might say, "C'mon, drop
it, what are you making such a big deal of this for?"
ABOUT THE CURRICULUM
AVB, which grows out of multidisciplinary
research into violent behavior, is geared toward middle school
students. The curriculum
has been designated as
a "promising program" by the U.S. Department of Education and was
selected by the Illinois Commission for the Prevention of Violence as one of
a handful of recommended curricula. It also received an A rating from Drug
Strategies, a nonprofit research institute that promotes effective approaches.
It is used in 44 states and has been formally adopted by many county and state
groups and agencies. In West Palm Beach, Florida, where the county has adopted
AVB for its middle school students, police officers have been trained to teach
the curriculum to 12,000 sixth graders each year (see sidebar). In the fall,
the program will be expanded to reach twice that number of students.
The backbone of the program is the four-step Think-First Model
of Conflict Resolution: first, keep cool; second, size up the situation;
third, think it
through; and fourth, do the right thing. Students have opportunities to practice
each step of the model in large and small groups. For example, students are
asked to put themselves in the role of someone who sees a friend being ridiculed
or threatened. Class discussion focuses on a number of questions: What are
some impulsive, hot-headed thoughts the bystander might be having? What could
he or she do to stay cool-headed in this situation? What can he or she do to
help diffuse the situation while still maintaining respect?
According to Slaby, teaching violence prevention through the experience of
a bystander works well because no one is defensive about being a bystander
(as they are about being the aggressor or victim). Bystanders don't have the
emotional investment in the conflict, so they can see a wider range of options
and make better decisions than the participants. "We're all equal as bystanders.
We can all learn well by distancing ourselves from a situation and using the
lessons as a mirror of our own behavior," he says. "This approach
becomes a stepping stone to social perspective-taking and to empathy, which
is the heart of violence prevention."
A RESEARCH-BASED PROGRAM
While the curriculum focuses on
nonviolent youth, many of its strategies grew out of research with
violent offenders. The understanding
of the pivotal role
of the bystander emerged from a multidisciplinary examination of violence,
says Slaby. Drawing on the perspectives of public health, developmental psychology,
education, and criminal justice, Slaby and his colleagues have come to see
violent behavior as the product of the habits of thought and coping strategies
children have learned in their early years. As such, they also came to see
that violent behavior-and, in turn, reactions to violence-can be unlearned.
"Patterns of violence can be changed, through early, systematic, and coordinated
application of violence prevention interventions that are guided by research," Slaby
writes. While early intervention is ideal, he says, it is never too late to intervene.
Research by Slaby and his colleagues revealed major differences
between violent juvenile offenders and their less violent classmates. "We found enormous
differences," says Slaby, "in how they think, what they think, and
their style of thinking. Violent youth lack the skills to solve social problems." They
don't think thoroughly or consequentially, Slaby explains. They don't think
of a wide range of options or prioritize them, and they characterize problems
and set goals based on hostile, adversarial positions.
With that knowledge, Slaby and his colleagues (notably Nancy
G. Guerra of the University of California at Riverside) set out
to affect these characteristics
of aggressors. They created a 12-session "cognitive mediation" program
that focused on behavior modification and problem-solving styles (e.g., passive,
aggressive, responsible) and presented it to aggressive, incarcerated boys
and girls. Following the classes, the young people showed increased skills
in solving social problems, decreased endorsement of beliefs supporting aggression,
and decreases in aggression, impulsiveness, and rigidity, as rated by staff.
The effects continued to be in place two years after the program.
On the basis of those results, Slaby and his colleagues realized
that if they could identify and address the habits of thinking
for aggressors, they should
also be able to do it for victims and bystanders.
The developers of AVB, Slaby, Renée Wilson, and Kimberly Dash, all of
EDC/HHD, had an abiding commitment to research as the basis for program development.
They developed lessons following basic research and an extensive review of
33 related curricula. They revised the program after soliciting extensive feedback
about the clarity, relevance, age-appropriateness, engagement, and practical
usefulness of the lessons. For example, they found that middle-schoolers didn't
understand the distinction between conflict "escalation" and "de-escalation," confusing
the terms with electronic escalators. The developers replaced those terms with
the concepts of "heating up" or "cooling down" the conflict,
phrases that were understood by all students. "All kids want to be 'cool-headed'
rather than 'hot-headed,'" observes Slaby.
Finally, the developers conducted outcome research on the use of
the curriculum with more than 300 high-risk, inner-city early adolescents.
The curriculum
led to changes in students' beliefs about violence; their intent to resolve
conflict without aggression, to seek more information, and to avoid conflict;
and their self-rated behavior, indicating withdrawal of bystander acceptance
and encouragement of aggression.
FUTURE WORK
Slaby's work in this realm will continue over
the next several years with a multilevel bystander intervention
that targets students,
adults, and community
members. In an effort to understand the many influences on violent behavior,
he is also studying the pervasive effects of media and whether "media
literacy" programs can play a preventive role.
Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders is part of EDC's Teenage
Health Teaching Modules, a health curriculum for grades 6-12, which is
in use in more than
6,000 middle and high schools across the country.
For questions or comments, contact mosaic@edc.org.
Copyright 2000-2003
Education Development Center, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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