nonexperimental research reviewed in Chapter 2 suggests that personality characteristics, beliefs, and attitudes held by individuals are robust predictors of delinquency. Two relatively stable personality characteristics – conscientiousness (e.g., competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and deliberation) and agreeableness (e.g., trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness) – predict less problem behavior. Aside from any direct influence these characteristics have on problem behavior, they also indirectly influence it by determining the extent and intensity of social control (e.g., attachments to school and others, commitment to education and work, and beliefs in rules), as well as the kinds of influences (especially peer) to which the individual is exposed. Evidence for a causal link between academic performance and problem behavior is weaker. Chapter 2 suggests that the correlation between academic performance and delinquency, at least prior to high school, is due mostly to their common reliance on early behavior problems. This chapter examines experimental and quasi-experimental studies for evidence that active manipulation of these presumed causal factors through interventions provided directly to students does in fact reduce problem behavior.

Presumably, prevention strategies aimed directly at changing one or more of these presumed causes of delinquency will be more effective and those targeting other factors will be less effective. Direct attempts to teach, model, and reinforce the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral skills necessary for self-regulation should be more effective for reducing problem behavior than attempts aimed at factors such as self-esteem or anxiety.

chapter 3 identified a number of features of school and classroom environments related to problem behavior. Many are characteristics of the way the school is organized and managed. The research implies that principals and faculty can control behavior by setting rules, communicating clear expectations for behavior, consistently enforcing rules, and providing rewards for rule compliance and punishments for rule infractions. They can also perform general management functions (such as coordination and resource allocation and communication) well, establish and maintain clear goals for the organization, deliver instruction in ways that promote maximal learning, and encourage a sense of community. They can create an extended network of caring adults who interact regularly with the students and who share norms and expectations about their students. The research implied that when educators succeed at creating such “communal social organizations,” they increase social control and therefore reduce the likelihood that youths will engage in problem behavior.

Can these findings from nonexperimental research be translated into specific policies and practices that can be implemented in schools? Are such programs effective for reducing problem behavior? This chapter examines evidence from experimental and quasi-experimental studies of attempts to implement changes to the way schools and classrooms are organized and managed.

Overview of Studies

Although the intent in this chapter is to focus on school-or classroom-level interventions, the multicomponent nature of school-based prevention makes it impossible to isolate these types of programs or practices.

kozol's (1992) stark account of the extremes of wealth and poverty in America's school system exposed major inequalities in public schooling. He contrasted schools serving inner city children with those serving more affluent populations in selected cities. Of one school in Chicago, he wrote:

He quoted a “permanent sub” (i.e., a long-term substitute teacher used to keep personnel costs down) who teaches in this school: “It was my turn. I have a room of 39 overage, unmotivated sixth and seventh graders. … I am not prepared for this. I have absolutely no idea what to do” (1992, p. 64). Kozol offered an account of a different teacher in the same school:

twenty years ago, an extensive review of delinquency prevention and treatment programs (Wright and Dixon, 1977) concluded that little evidence of positive effects for prevention programs could be found in the available research, but that implementation quality and quantity helped to explain the success of the relatively few programs that produced positive results. Today we can conclude that considerable evidence of positive effects for prevention programs can be found in the available research, but that implementation quality and quantity qualify the positive findings. Schools can be a site for effective intervention, or a site for nonintervention or ineffective intervention. Schools have the potential to contribute to the positive socialization of youth. But the range of conditions under which they have been demonstrated to realize this potential is narrow.

This chapters summarizes the conclusions of earlier chapters and offers recommendations for the practice of school-based prevention and for additional research to advance the field.

The Practice of School-Based Prevention

Policy Recommendations

The research summarized in this book suggests four broad policy recommendations for the practice of school-based prevention:

Appropriate more dollars for school-based prevention.

Shift monies away from approaches with less research support and toward approaches with more research support.

Build in systems to monitor program implementation and provide technical assistance and organization development assistance where needed to strengthen programs.

What type of student engages in problem behavior? How does the school encourage or discourage the development of these characteristics, if at all? This chapter examines evidence from a variety of research traditions on individual-level correlates of problem behavior and attempts to identify which of the many correlates of problem behavior are also causes. It summarizes contributions from personality research and criminological theory on the stability of these individual factors over the life course, and constructs a model of the development of problem behavior during the schooling years. The chapter ends by discussing school's potential role in increasing or decreasing problem behavior.

Correlates and Antecedents of Problem Behavior

Persons who engage in one form of problem behavior are highly likely to engage in others: 59% of youths who have committed serious crimes have also used multiple drugs, compared with 19% among youths who had not committed these crimes (Elliott et al., 1989); school dropouts have four times as many police contacts as high school graduates (Elliott and Voss, 1974); among males who had used marijuana by their senior year, 44% had also had sexual intercourse compared with 17% for males who had not used marijuana (Jessor and Jessor, 1977). Risky sexual behavior is also highly correlated with antisocial behavior, smoking, alcohol use, and illicit drug use (Biglan et al., 1990). This “comorbidity” of problem behaviors is well established.

schools are particularly well situated to provide prevention services: they provide regular access to students during the developmental years and may represent the only reliable access to large numbers of crime-prone youths. Children spend approximately 18% of their waking hours in school. Schools are staffed with individuals trained to help youths develop into healthy, happy, productive citizens and the community is generally supportive of schools' efforts to socialize youths. On these grounds alone, schools have crime prevention potential.

The preceding chapters paint a fairly optimistic view of the ability to realize this potential through school-based prevention. The nonexperimental studies summarized in Chapters 2 and 3 show that several of the likely causes of problem behavior are school-related, and that features of schools are related to the level of disorderly behavior they experience. The experimental studies summarized in Chapters 5 and 6 show that many of these factors can be manipulated, and that when they are manipulated, a reduction in problem behavior often results. These studies generally accord with the research on the causes of problem behavior by showing that attempts to alter the most likely causal factors (according to nonexperimental research) are more successful than attempts to alter other factors.

This chapter examines the generalizability of the research findings summarized in previous chapters.

this brief chapter describes the methodology used to locate and summarize studies of the effectiveness of attempts to prevent or reduce problem behavior. It provides an overview of the studies included in the next two chapters. The chapter begins with a discussion of the importance of experimental and quasi-experimental studies both for refining theories about the causes of problem behavior and for learning how to prevent it.

Correlation versus Causality

Although the risk factors summarized in earlier chapters are correlated with current and future problem behavior, most have not been demonstrated to cause problem behavior. Even longitudinal studies fall short of the standards necessary to establish causal relations: covariation, temporal priority, and nonspuriousness. Studies summarized in the two preceding chapters always satisfy the first, often the second, but almost never the third requirement.

Correlation does not imply causation. A correlation between an individual risk factor (e.g., academic performance, beliefs in the validity of rules) or a characteristic of the school environment (e.g., collegial relations, fairness, and clarity of rules) and problem behavior cannot be interpreted causally because the problem behavior may have preceded the risk factor in time or because the correlation may arise simply because both the risk factor and the problem behavior are caused by a third factor. Even if the correlation arises from a causal association, the direction of the causation may not be as expected. The direction of associations established in correlational research is often ambiguous.