A Classroom-based Relational Aggression Intervention

描述(申请人提供)：尽管女孩之间的攻击性一度被认为是相对罕见的，但最近的研究表明，女孩经常进行关系攻击(例如，通过八卦和社会排斥来操纵关系和社会地位)。此外，经常表现出人际攻击行为的儿童会经历许多外化、内化和社交困难，并面临未来心理健康障碍的风险。尽管在理解关系攻击及其影响方面取得了进展，但几乎所有的攻击干预努力都是为身体攻击和男孩设计的。此外，鉴于非裔美国学生在市中心资源不足地区面临的风险增加，迫切需要制定战略，建设市中心学校的能力，以促进生产性社会问题解决技能的发展，同时降低学生的关系攻击和身体攻击水平。 在NIMH(K23奖)的资助下，首席调查员设计了第20节强化的校本小组干预，其中包括12节辅助课堂部分。这项名为朋友对朋友(Friend to Friend，F2F)的计划的目标是教3-5年级市中心的非裔美国女孩在人际关系方面具有攻击性的社交问题解决技能，并降低她们的攻击性水平。目前的提案寻求开发一种基于课堂的干预措施，称为防止学校日常关系攻击(PUSPEST)，它扩展了F2F的基于课堂的课程。在第一阶段，将通过与学生和教师的重点小组、依靠由当地学校和社区利益攸关方组成的专家小组以及通过进行公开试验性试点研究来制定和微调赞扬。在第二阶段，将评估表扬在课堂环境中使用的可接受性和可行性，将得出表扬对实验课堂中关系攻击性女孩的影响的效应大小估计，并初步探讨课堂层面干预的潜在影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although aggression among girls was once thought to be relatively rare, more recent research suggests that girls frequently engage in relational aggression (e.g., manipulating relationships and social standing through gossip and social exclusion). Further, children who frequently exhibit relationally aggressive behaviors experience a host of externalizing, internalizing, and social difficulties, and are at risk for future mental health disorders. Despite advances in understanding relational aggression and its repercussions, almost all aggression intervention efforts have been designed for physical aggression and for boys. Further, given the increased risk experienced by African American students in inner-city, under-resourced areas, strategies for building the capacity of inner-city schools to promote the development of productive social problem solving skills while decreasing students' levels of relational and physical aggression are critically needed. With funding from NIMH (K23 Award), the principal investigator has designed an intensive 20th session school-based group intervention, which includes a 12 session adjunctive classroom-based component. The goal of this program, termed Friend to Friend (F2F), is to teach 3rd - 5th grade inner-city African American relationally aggressive girls social problem-solving skills and reduce their levels of aggression. The current proposal seeks to develop a classroom-based intervention termed Preventing Relational Aggression in Schools Everyday (PRAISE) that expands upon the classroom-based curriculum of F2F. In phase 1, PRAISE will be developed and fine-tuned through focus groups with students and teachers, by relying upon an expert panel of local school and community stakeholders, and by conducting an open trial pilot study. In phase 2, the acceptability and feasibility of PRAISE for use within a classroom setting will be assessed, effect size estimates for the impact of PRAISE on relationally aggressive girls within experimental classrooms will be derived, and potential effects of the intervention at the classroom level will be preliminarily explored.