Getting Teachers in on the Act: Evaluation of a Theater- and Classroom-Based Youth Violence Prevention Program

Abstract

This study replicated and extended our previous evaluation of Urban Improv (UI), a theater-based youth violence prevention (YVP) program developed for urban youth. It assessed the replicability of positive program impacts when implemented by nonprogram originators, as well as the utility of a comprehensive version of the UI program that included a classroom-based teacher curriculum (TC). Outcomes compared 260 elementary school students in classrooms that received basic UI, the TC, or the comprehensive program (UI + TC), or to serve as matched control classrooms. Findings revealed that UI can be generalized to new troupes, the comprehensive program demonstrates an additive effect over UI alone, and the TC shows some promise as an easily disseminated, stand-alone YVP program.

KEYWORDS:

• youth violence
• prevention
• theater
• elementary school
• outcome evaluation
• replication

The research presented in this paper was funded in part by grants from the Hamilton Fish Youth Violence Prevention Consortium administered through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and from the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.