Positive Peer Solutions One Answer for the Rejected Student.: An article from: Phi Delta Kappan

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Citation Details
Title: Positive Peer Solutions One Answer for the Rejected Student.
Author: and Thomas E. Dinero

The authors describe an intervention strategy that helps alienated and disengaged students bond to school through "making a contribution to the whole."

ASK ANY parent or teacher to name the strongest influence on children today, and the most frequent response will be "the peer group," an observation supported equally by popular culture and by scientific research.1 The psychological pull of groups with social status has been used to explain many forms of behavior. From poodle skirts in the 1950s to cigarette smoking and drug use today, from the urge to own "Beanie Babies" to the idolatry surrounding quarterbacks and movie stars to the terror in Littleton, Colorado, we can observe many examples of this pull to conform and belong to a peer group.

We often hear parents and educators commiserating with one another about their inability to fight this force. How many parents or teachers have thrown up their hands at the latest song lyrics, the content of television programs, or the dress of the newest rock or rap group? The tragedy of the Columbine High School killings demonstrates beyond any question that negative peer interactions can lead to heinous consequences.

Peer pressure, television, Hollywood, parenting, video games, and the education establishment have all been blamed at one time or another for influencing - or failing to influence - children's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors across a wide spectrum of issues from classroom cheating to drug abuse and school violence. Once the particular problems have been identified, the corrective interventions selected by school authorities are typically remedial, working with students who have already exhibited problems or with those who fit one diagnostic profile or another.

These children, who are deemed to be at risk, have a higher chance of failure in school and in life than do other children. Many programs have been developed across the nation to build resiliency in such children. Although the intentions of these programs have been honorable, many have remained unsuccessful. For example, data collected from the Add Health project, a nationwide study of children at risk, imply that prevention programs fail because they are not based on theory, are not research based, use one-dimensional strategies, and focus on problem reduction rather than on enhancement of human development.2

An alternative intervention strategy, called Positive Peer Groups (PPG), has operated for the last nine years in grades 5-9 in both public and parochial school settings throughout northeastern Ohio. An outgrowth of the work of Donald Wonderly,3 the PPG model was designed and is currently being implemented by the Prevention Initiatives Division of PSI (Prevention: Systems Intervention) Affiliates, Inc., a private consortium of psychologists, educators, and prevention specialists who work in partnership with Michael Voinovich, director of government programs for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. PSI was founded to deliver a research-based, multi-tiered program of teacher, parent, and staff training, Steven L. Rosenberg: Loren M. McKeon
Publication:Phi Delta Kappan (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 1999
Publisher: Phi Delta Kappa, Inc.
Volume: 81 Issue: 2 Page: 114

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