Assessment of the effects of a violence prevention programme on cognitive and behavioural factors from the subjective perception of teachers and adolescents

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of the Dando pasos hacia la paz (Taking steps towards peace) intervention programme, which seeks to encourage respect for human rights and prevent violence. The sample consisted of 191 15-17 year old teenagers (M =15.54, SD = 0.69) and 9 teachers who implemented the programme. The teenagers were 10th grade students from schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country. The intervention consisted of ten 90-minute sessions at the end of which the teachers and teenagers completed a questionnaire assessing their experience of the programme and evaluating its effects on people‘s social and emotional development. The findings showed that the teachers who had implemented the programme: 1. positively assessed 14 of its qualitiesutilities; 2. regarded that, in general terms, the experience was very positive and they were going to keep implementing it in the future, and 3. noticed that their students showed a medium-high level of change in 7 social and emotional development factors, namely communication, social behaviour, emotions, violence, conflict resolution, prosocial and human right values, and psychological well-being. The teachers‘ perception coincided with that of the students‘ perception of change. The debate now turns around the potential roles of these programmes in the prevention of political violence.