Discusses intervention options that help prevent violence in schools by affecting the school climate. Describes five approaches to improve the school climate: (1) parent and community involvement; (2) character education; (3) violence-prevention and conflict-resolution curricula; (4) peer mediation; and (5) bullying prevention. (CMK)

This article focuses on several approaches for schools to use of improve school climate, in part to prevent violence or at least to improve student behavioral conflicts, including: parent and community involvement, character education, violence-prevention and conflict-resolution curricula, peer mediation, and bullying prevention. (Contains…

Discusses several prominent intervention approaches intended to prevent violence and inappropriate behavior in school by directly or indirectly affecting the social climate of the school. Looks at programs focusing on: parent and community involvement; character education; violence prevention and conflict resolution curricula; peer mediation; and…

How can schools be kept safe and promote a school climate that is conducive to student learning? The previous two papers, examined methods that have not demonstrated success in maintaining safe and productive school climates. The first briefing paper demonstrated that zero tolerance has not met its goal of maintaining safety, has been…

The failure to consider factors that make a key contribution to violence and its prevention may create serious problems of construct validity for school violence surveys. Further, few studies have assessed the relative importance of variables contributing to perceptions of safety by examining correlations between survey items and overall feelings…

School violence became a topic of broad national concern in the United States in reaction to a series of tragic school shootings during the 1990s. Efforts to understand and prevent school shootings have stimulated the rapid development of a broader interest in school safety with an emerging multidisciplinary research agenda. The maturation and…

How do Indiana schools use school discipline? The first briefing paper explored controversies at the national level concerning the philosophy and practice of zero tolerance. That exploration found that many of the assumptions of zero tolerance are not supported by evidence. The data suggest that zero tolerance tends to be associated with a number…

This paper discusses ways that educators can develop a variety of school-based programs that can significantly reduce the threat of serious violence and disruptions. An effective technology of school safety, it states, begins with knowledge and understanding. The purpose of the paper is to outline the current state of knowledge about…

Previous research has suggested that increased use of school suspension and expulsion may be associated with increased risk of dropout and lower achievement. Part of the purpose of school discipline is to maintain school climates conducive to learning. This paper describes analyses exploring the relationship between school use of out of- …

This document summarizes the findings of a series of three briefing papers that were produced via the collaboration of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy and the Indiana Youth Services Association in an effort to create a dialogue between the education and juvenile justice communities on effective methods of school discipline: (1)…