Handbook of prosocial education

The purpose of this two-volume handbook is to bring together a variety of school-based interventions and pedagogical approaches all aimed at enhancing prosocial behaviour in students under a single umbrella and give it a new moniker—prosocial education. The editors’ goal was to introduce the reader to many different approaches to prosocial education, stress its importance, invigorate the national debate and provide examples of how schools can enact prosocial education (p. 6). The audience is educators and policymakers, as well as researchers.

Although several different definitions of prosocial education are proffered throughout the handbook, the clearest definition is ‘programs and practices designed to promote prosocial behavior, including moral reasoning, social skills, civic engagement, social-emotional learning, and character’ (p. 51). The term ‘prosocial behavior’ is relatively new. It was coined in 1972 as the antonym of antisocial behavior (Wispé, 1972) and first appeared as a topic in the 1983 edition of the Handbook of Child Development (Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman, 1983). Prosocial behavior is voluntary behavior intended to benefit others or promote harmonious relations with others.

The publication of the Handbook of Prosocial Education is timely. There has been growing interest at US national, state, and district levels in prosocial education. However, prosocial education goes by so many different labels—soft-skills, social-emotional learning, whole child education, service learning, civic, character, and moral education—that educators often do not know that they are talking about conceptually overlapping programs. Each of these aspects of prosocial education has developed separate research histories and approaches, despite their common purpose.

The handbook has four sections. Section 1 (Chapters 1–4) introduces the volume. These chapters review the history, research base, and necessity of prosocial education. Chapter 1 makes a case for the need for prosocial education. Chapters 2 and 3 provide an overview of the history of the vast field of prosocial education. Chapter 3 also includes a primer on US federal programs and legislation of the last few decades that expanded prosocial education in schools, and summarises research on prosocial education. These chapters are brief (10–15 pages), yet address complex topics, so the result is lighter-than-expected coverage, which could be solved in future editions by greater specialisation of some of the opening chapters that overlap a bit. Chapter 4 is a must-read that distils the components of effective prosocial education, and concludes with a very helpful list of recommendations for practitioners and policymakers. Chapter 5 applies a myriad of psychological theories to prosocial education. It presents a whirlwind tour of the standard content for university child development and educational psychology courses that help justify prosocial education.

The chapters are sometimes contradictory in ways that leave the reader puzzled. For example, the School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) program is presented as an effective approach to prosocial education in Chapter 3, and somewhat in Chapter 5, but this is contradicted by a brief, but thoughtful discussion in Chapter 4 of the significant problems with SWPBIS and its potential harmful effect on prosocial development. As another example, multiple chapters assert that policymakers only care about standardized tests and not about prosocial education, but other chapters discuss legislation and government-funded programs to promote prosocial education.

Section 2 (Chapters 6–18), the bulk of the handbook, presents specific approaches to prosocial education. These include character, civic, and moral education, improving school climate, service learning, social and emotional learning, mindfulness, positive youth development, prevention of antisocial behaviour, early childhood education, after-school programs, educator training programs, and multicultural education.

The organisation of Section 2 is superb. Each approach opens with a chapter that: (1) describes the approach and its history; and (2) summarises research on the approach. This chapter is followed by two to three case studies of real schools implementing the approach, written by practitioners. This organisation is ideal for linking research and practice. The chapters are uneven in living up to the expectations of this organisation. Some are not as descriptive as they should be, leaving the reader not fully understanding active ingredients of the approach. In addition, some are thin on research support, leaving the reader unconvinced of the efficacy of the approach. Some chapters cherry-pick positive results, such that the naive reader would come away believing the approach is an unalloyed success, whereas the well-versed reader knows that the research often finds null, or even negative, results (for a review with null effects see Social and Character Development Research Consortium, 2010). The field would benefit from forthright discussions of what prosocial education approaches can do, as well as what they cannot do. This section would be improved by asking authors to consistently: (1) specify the prosocial outcomes their approach is efficacious in achieving; (2) provide effect sizes, where appropriate; and (3) discuss whether the approach is best, or most commonly, delivered as a universal (for all students), targeted (for at-risk students), or individual (focused on high-need students) intervention.

Section 3 (Chapters 19–22) presents prosocial education from the perspective of individuals in different roles: superintendent, school principal, student services support staff, and teacher. Importantly, chapters are written by stakeholders who have actually implemented prosocial education from the perspective of their lived experience. This section will be useful to readers in each of these roles.

Section 4 (Chapters 23–24) summarises the book and reviews key issues. Some content is redundant with the opening chapters. Chapter 23 makes a case for why prosocial education is important by describing current problems with American education. Chapter 24 provides a brief overview of prosocial education policy. However, the primary question for educators may not be whether prosocial education is important or what policies support it, but rather how to best go about it. It would be useful to provide readers with a cost-benefit discussion, integration, or analysis that compares the various approaches from Section 2. Practitioners need this kind of information as they strive to use research-based practices and data-driven decision-making. Educators would benefit from closing chapters that discuss key similarities and differences in approaches and outcomes that would allow them to make informed decisions about what fits their school context. The final two pages of this section are helpful to policymakers because they synthesise practical recommendations.

The comprehensiveness of this volume is impressive. However, as with all such collections of works, it has some weaknesses. The tone of some of the bookend opening and closing chapters is negative toward schools, such as asserting that they are ‘failing… our children’ (p. 5) and are ‘due for an overhaul’ (p. 39), which may offend readers who are educators and policymakers. In addition, there are some important omissions. Missing is a judicious discussion of outcome measurement, which is a serious challenge in prosocial education. The topic is lightly touched upon in multiple chapters but not discussed with depth (see Chapter 9 for an exception). This topic is important because the adage ‘what gets measured gets done’ characterizes education. Many chapters discuss outcomes that involve reducing antisocial behaviour, rather than increasing prosocial behaviour. A discussion of whether this is appropriate is warranted. Furthermore, many chapters differentiate aspects of antisocial behaviour that their approach is efficacious in reducing (e.g., substance use, sexual risk taking, aggression, referrals and suspensions), but do not afford prosocial behaviour the same differentiation. Prosocial behaviour is as multifaceted as antisocial behaviour. At school, youth enact different kinds of prosocial behaviours, such as comforting others, providing help, standing up for others, being inclusive, brokering peace, and complimenting others (Bergin, in press). These different kinds of prosocial behaviours are likely to have different antecedents, such that different approaches to prosocial education may be efficacious in increasing different kinds of prosocial behaviours. A discussion of these differences is warranted.

Another omission is a judicious discussion of how psychological research on the antecedents of children’s prosocial development informs prosocial education. A discussion of psychological research—such as the importance of teacher–student relationships and victim-centered induction—would help readers understand why some program dimensions should be effective. It would also help clarify the differences between prosocial education as a ‘program’ compared to prosocial education as the ‘way teachers interact with’ students in their daily activities (Chapter 6 distinguishes such direct and indirect prosocial education). Of course editors have to make difficult decisions about what to include, or not include, in any handbook. I hope that a second edition of this worthy handbook is planned, and that these omissions may be addressed.

The field is indebted to the editors, Brown, Corrigan, and Higgins-D’Alessandro, for bringing together widely disparate research and programmatic fields that have not been brought together before. The handbook will make prosocial education more visible and encourage its expansion. It is a giant step toward integrating this disparate field. This 838-page handbook offers much more than can be reviewed here. It is a rich resource on a wide range of programs and interventions.

Christi Bergin
University of Missouri
Email: [email protected]
© 2014, Christi Bergin
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2014.883708