Fighting Aggression in the Schools: Evaluating the Second Step Curriculum

Abstract

Safety concerns, increased staff turnover, emotional problems, and truancy are just a few outcomes of aggressive behavior in schools (Ellis, 2019). Schools should consider implementing prevention-based aggression programs to obtain long-term benefits (James et al., 2019). Some prevention programs focus on social–emotional (SE) skills like emotional awareness, empathy, regulation, and relationship skills (Taylor et al., 2017). Others address deficits in executive functioning (EF) such as inhibitory control, working memory, and attention (Diamond & Ling, 2016). Second Step was designed to address both EF and SE skill deficits. These early skills have been found to be more important to overall educational achievement than interventions for learning basic numbers and letters (Upshur et al., 2019). The goal of Second Step is to promote interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies while reducing social, emotional, and behavior problems in school settings (Moy & Hazen, 2018). Second Step is an early intervention and prevention curriculum designed to teach children from preschool through eighth grade. Second Step is heavily rooted in social learning theory (SLT), which describes how children learn from observing others (Ahn et al., 2019). The program uses SE strategies to help students learn to recognize and control emotions, gain empathy, form healthy relationships, engage in effective decision making, and deal with challenging situations (Moy & Hazen, 2018).