Abstract:
Objective: This study wants to investigate the effectiveness of a new developed universal, multidimensional approach to prevent bullying in secondary schools (5th grade) and to enhance social competent behaviour of students. Goals: We expected a) students to report lower levels of bullying and victimization and higher levels of prosocial behaviour following exposure to the cognitive-behavioural oriented programme and b) that the decrease of bullying/ victimization and the increase of prosocial behaviour will be even higher if parents participated in the programme. Possible differential effects between boys and girls were considered. Method: Participants were 145 5th grade students of Middleschools in Southern Germany, 96 mothers and 6 teachers. The preventive programme was evaluated using an experimental design with pre- and post-test analyses (2 weeks, 4 months after exposure to the intervention). The schools were randomly allocated to three conditions (proACT: class- and teacher-curriculum, proACT + E: class-, teacher- and parent-curriculum; control group: unspecific intervention). Results: Students´ self-evaluations show that problem behaviour (verbal aggression, positive attitudes towards aggression, problems with peers) can be reduced significantly by the prevention programme; prosocial behaviour improves if parents participated in the program. Concerning attitudes towards aggression differential effects of the programme between boys and girls are found. Whereas teachers´ data partly confirms students´ perception , mothers realise no changes at all. Discussion: The findings based on students´ self- reports and teachers´ reports prove the acceptance, practicability and effectiveness of a school-based violence prevention programme. Not including parents can inhibit positive outcomes. This evaluated universal prevention approach is available to prevent bullying and to build up prosocial behaviour in the perception of students and teachers. Future research should encourage information exchange between students, parents and teachers; using different methods to assess data could facilitate the understanding of discrepant findings.