Behavioral strategies for constructing nonviolent cultures with youth: a review.
Teach social skills and reshape the whole school culture at the same time—single-shot lessons won’t curb youth violence.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors read every paper they could find on stopping youth violence. They looked at two kinds of programs. One kind teaches all kids social skills in class. The other kind changes the whole school culture.
They wrote a big-picture review. No new data. They just summed up what others had tested.
What they found
Both ideas look helpful, but the proof is thin. Skills classes alone don’t stick unless the whole building backs them.
The team says we need longer, deeper plans that live in daily routines, not short workshops.
How this fits with other research
Killeen (1995) said the same thing earlier: fix the school climate first. Eisenhower et al. (2006) widen that call to include families and neighborhoods.
Khemka et al. (2016) give a clear win. They ran a real class curriculum and teens got better at saying no to bad peer pressure. Their study shows the skills part can work when it is well scripted.
Tonnsen et al. (2016) show the culture part works too. The Color Wheel cut kindergarteners’ shout-outs in half the first week. Tiny kids, same idea: rules plus group rewards change the room fast.
Dukhayyil et al. (1973) warn us not to hand control to students too soon. When teens managed their own tokens, disruption shot back up. Keep adult guidance while the culture is still forming.
Why it matters
You don’t need to wait for perfect evidence. Start small today. Pair a social-skills mini-lesson with a class-wide reward. Track one problem behavior for two weeks. If it dips, keep going and add parent tips. If it flat-lines, tighten the reward and re-teach the skill. Build the culture piece by piece.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pick one disruptive behavior, teach a 5-minute replacement skill, and tie a group reward to it—track counts before and after lunch.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Youth violence is widely recognized as a critical social issue in the United States, and many approaches to prevention have been developed in recent years. Emerging research suggests that only approaches that are deeply embedded in cultural, community, and organizational contexts are likely to be powerful enough to have a meaningful collective impact. No programs of this kind that are also truly practical and socially valid have yet reached a level where they can be regarded as well established, but data are beginning to appear that can guide community efforts. In this review, two classes of behavioral programming that appear promising as partial solutions to this need are identified: universal skills training and ecological strategies that focus on interlocking cultural practices. Progressive refinements in both are appearing through programs of developmental research. This paper reviews the state of the science in these efforts.
Behavior modification, 2006 · doi:10.1177/0145445503259390