Randomized Trial of a Gender Enhanced Middle School Violence Prevention Program

描述（由申请人提供）：青少年中的欺凌、性暴力和约会暴力都是发生率相对较高的主要公共卫生问题，需要引起注意，以减轻它们造成的巨大痛苦。这些问题具有共同的发展相关性，并且有证据表明，欺凌行为和受害者与性骚扰、基于性别的骚扰和青少年约会暴力参与同时且长期相关（Basile et al., 2009; Espelage et al., 2012）。尽管霸凌的成本很高，但美国预防霸凌项目的效果却令人失望，尤其是在中学。社交情绪学习（SEL）项目正在减少美国学校的攻击性行为（Durlak et al., 2011），部分原因是通过帮助学生发展处理冲突的社交和情感技能，但效果可能更大。本应用程序中提供的数据强烈表明，为了提高效果，以学校为基础的欺凌预防项目需要：1)整合以证据为基础的方法，侧重于不同程度的影响（个人、同伴、学校）；2)侧重于基于性别的骚扰和暴力（即性骚扰和暴力、约会暴力、与性取向和/或性别角色不一致有关的骚扰和暴力）；3)解决欺凌和基于性别的骚扰和暴力的一个主要驱动因素——传统的男性意识形态和仇视同性恋的辱骂。因此，本申请提出了一项大规模随机对照试验，将第二步（CfC, 2008）计划与性别增强的第二步+移动边界计划（SB; Taylor et al., 2011）进行比较。SB项目将解决性骚扰、基于性别的骚扰和约会暴力的课堂课程与全校策略相结合，以减少这些后果。全校范围的策略包括应对约会暴力和性骚扰的学校协议，以及加强对“热点”的监控。来自伊利诺伊州两个学区的28所中学（6 - 8年级）将被随机分配到第二个学区

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bullying, sexual violence, and dating violence among adolescents are all major public health problems that occur at relatively high rates and demand attention to alleviate the considerable suffering they cause. These problems share developmental correlates and evidence is emerging that bully perpetration and victimization is concurrently and longitudinally associated with sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, and teen dating violence involvement (Basile et al., 2009; Espelage et al., 2012). Despite the costs of bullying, the impact of prevention programs in the US has been disappointing, especially in middle-schools. Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs are reducing aggression in US schools (Durlak et al., 2011), in part, by helping students develop social and emotional skills to manage conflicts, but effects could be greater. Data presented in this application strongly suggest that to increase effects, school-based bullying prevention programs need to: 1) integrate evidence-based approaches that focus on different levels of influence (individual, peer, school), 2) focus on gender-based harassment and violence (i.e., sexual harassment and violence, dating violence, harassment and violence associated with sexual orientation and/or gender-role nonconformity) and 3) address a major driver of bullying and gender-based harassment and violence - traditional masculine ideology and homophobic name-calling. Thus, this application proposes a large-scale RCT comparing the Second Step (CfC, 2008) program to a gender-enhanced Second Step + Shifting Boundaries program (SB; Taylor et al., 2011). The SB program combines a classroom curriculum that addresses sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, and dating violence with whole-school strategies to decrease these outcomes. School-wide strategies include school protocols for responding to dating violence and sexual harassment and increased monitoring of "hot spots." Twenty-eight middle schools (grades 6 - 8) from two school districts in Illinois will be randomly assigned to either the Second Step only condition or the gender-enhanced Second Step condition (Second Step/SB). Two cohorts (6th and 7th graders) will complete baseline and follow-up surveys. Study aims are to evaluate the differential efficacy of the Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention program (Second Step) versus a gender-enhanced Second Step program (Second Step/SB) on reducing bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, and teen dating violence; to assess the extent to which gender-enhanced Second Step versus Second Step results in greater increases in positive bystander intervention around bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, and teen dating violence; and to test the extent to which the intervention impacts peer-level attitudes toward bullying, sexual harassment, homophobic name-calling, and teen dating violence through its effect on peer social dynamics. This study is highly innovative and could have substantial public health impact by targeting bullying, dating violence, and sexual harassment.