Social ecology model of adolescent interpersonal violence prevention

Middle schools are teaching students to be peer mediators as part of comprehensive conflict mediation programs in order to reduce interpersonal violence and foster a more conducive learning atmosphere. The purposes of this study were to (1) adapt and test the Social Ecology Model of Adolescent Interpersonal Violence Prevention (SEMAIVP), (2) develop and test the Youth Conflict Mediation Survey as a measure of the SEMAIVP constructs, and (3) test the model's usefulness in detecting differences among students participating versus those not participating as peer mediators in middle school-based programs.;The SEMAIVP was found to explain 44 percent of self-reported violence avoidance behaviors and 51 percent of violence engagement behaviors. When the Violence Avoidance Behaviors Scale was used as the dependent variable, Gender, Recognition for Violence Avoidance and Violence Engagement Behavior were the predictor variables. Using the Violence Engagement Behavior Scale as the dependent variable, the predictor variables were Anger Control Beliefs, Anger Control Strategies, Self-Efficacy, Neighborhood Fighting, Skill Development Opportunity and Violence Avoidance Behaviors.;Seven of the twelve scales associated students who had been asked to mediate a conflict between other students with more pro-social attitudes and behaviors than with students who had not been asked to mediate a conflict between other students. These scales included Anger Control Beliefs, Anger Control Strategies, Violence Avoidance Behaviors, Family Climate, Skill Development Opportunity, Recognition for Violence Avoidance and School Climate. Demographic variables showed significant differences on the three interpersonal violence scales. Significant differences were found on the remaining nine social ecology scales.;Adolescent violence prevention can be understood through the use of the SEMAIVP. The first step in model development, construct identification, was taken in this study. Further testing needs to occur in scale development path analysis and with additional adolescent populations. Recommendations are made for education, practice, research and health policy development.;This was a cross-sectional, post-intervention study of 318 students (ages 11-15) in three suburban middle schools using a one time survey. Factor and reliability analysis for the Youth Conflict Mediation Survey revealed twelve scales containing 53 items with Cronbach alpha's ranging from.61 to.86 that were retained for data analysis.