COMPARISON OF 2 VIOLENCE PREVENTION CURRICULA FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of the Violence Prevention Cur riculum for Adolescents to the Conflict Resolution: A Curriculum for Y outh Providers among middle school students. Methods: A sample (N = 22 5) of adolescents (males = 48%) representing 20% of the student popula tion in two middle schools were administered a pretest questionnaire. Of these students, 89% were African-American, 10% were white, and 1% w ere Native-American and lived in public housing (40%) or in neighborho ods adjacent to public housing (60%). Each school was randomly assigne d to one of the curricula. Each curriculum was administered during 10 50-min sessions held twice a week over 5 weeks. One week later, 209 st udents who completed the 10 sessions were tested with the same questio nnaire. The data were analyzed with a repeated-measures analysis of va riance. Results: Students who received either curriculum reported sign ificant decreases in their self-reported use of violence in hypothetic al conflict situations, frequency of use of violence in the previous 3 0 days, and frequency of physical fights in the previous 30 days. The conflict resolution curriculum was more effective in reducing the freq uency of fights resulting in an injury requiring medical treatment in the previous 30 days. Conclusions: Both curricula were successful in r educing three indicators of violence. However, the conflict resolution approach was more successful in reducing the frequency of more severe physical fights requiring medical treatment. The latter finding is of particular importance, because that physical fighting is the form of violence behavior in which young adolescents most often engage.