Peers Making Peace
Solution types
School Dropout Prevention
Problems addressed
Low educational/academic performance
School dropout
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Teenagers (14 to 17 years)
Where the program was applied
Education establishment
Country of application
United States
Description

This is a mediation program to deal with conflicts inside and outside the school, as well as working towards drug-free school environments. The aim is to reduce violence and encourage the adoption of disciplinary sanctions to boost school performance.
The program offers a set of strategies, including social skills training, conflict prevention and resolution, parental involvement, and peer coaching. Trained students apply these interventions as mediators and must make up a team that is representative of the school in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and other social markers of difference.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation study showed that participants in the program had less aggressive behavior and fewer expulsions and absences from school and disciplinary sanctions, as well as greater self-efficacy and better school performance, compared to the students in the control group, who did not receive the intervention [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Bloom, H. S. & Unterman, R. (2013). Sustained Progress: New Findings About the Effectiveness and Operation of Small Public High Schools of Choice in New York City. https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/sustained_progress_FR_0.pdf

[2] Unterman, R. (2014). Headed to college: The effects of New York City's small high schools of choice on postsecondary enrollment. New York: MDRC. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2573242

[3] Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Hu, W., & Pathak, P. A. (2013). Small high schools and student achievement: Lottery-based evidence from New York City (No. w19576). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Information source