Evaluation of a theater-based youth violence prevention program for elementary school children

Cassandra Kisiel; Margaret Blaustein; Joseph Spinazzola; Caren Swift Schmidt; Marla Zucker; Bessel van der Kolk

doi:10.1300/J202v05n02_03

Evaluation of a theater-based youth violence prevention program for elementary school children

Cassandra Kisiel^*, Margaret Blaustein, Joseph Spinazzola, Caren Swift Schmidt, Marla Zucker, Bessel van der Kolk

^*Corresponding author for this work

Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present study evaluated the impact of Urban Improv (UI), a theater-based youth violence prevention (YVP) program developed for inner-city youth, on three behavioral and psychological outcome domains: aggressive behaviors, prosocial behaviors, and scholastic attention and engagement. This study compared outcomes for 77 elementary school students in classrooms designated to receive UI with those of 63 students from matched control classrooms. Findings revealed that students who received UI were superior to matched controls on all outcome domains. Findings support UI as a promising practice for YVP with urban elementary school students and suggest that greater attention should be focused on application of theater-based programs in YVP.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	19-36
Number of pages	18
Journal	Journal of School Violence
Volume	5
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1300/J202v05n02_03
State	Published - Jun 12 2006

Keywords

Elementary school
Outcome evaluation
Prevention
Theater
Youth violence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

Access to Document

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