Culturally Responsive Approaches to School Violence Prevention

Abstract

School faculties are assuming increasingly complex roles in contemporary schools, including helping students from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds develop social skills and anger management, areas of behavioral formation that are usually the primary concern of parents. While all students benefit from these services either directly or indirectly, they are especially intended for distressed students who may be at risk of becoming violent. This chapter reviews selected studies of experimental violence prevention programs used in the United States (U.S.) public schools. A new group counseling activity entitled Branch Out, that was developed by a school counselor and is frequently used with culturally diverse groups, is reviewed for its applicability as a communication and social skills builder and a violence prevention strategy for K-12 schools as well as family and organizational groups. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol10/iss3/7