Evaluation of Gender Violence and Harassment Prevention Programs in Middle Schools in Cleveland, Ohio, 2006-2007 [United States]

The study was designed to help increase the capacity of programs to prevent gender violence and harassment (GV/H) among middle school youth. The long-term goal of the study was to help prevent intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and sexual harassment by employing rigorous methods to evaluate strategies for altering violence-supportive attitudes and norms of youth. Specifically, the study was structured to evaluate the relative effectiveness of common approaches to youth GV/H prevention programming (in terms of knowledge, attitudes, intended behavior, behavior, and emotional safety of youth participants) for one of the youngest populations ever studied in this area.  In a longitudinal randomized controlled trial study, two five-lesson curricula were created to address gender violence and harassment (GV/H) in middle schools, and classrooms were assigned randomly to treatment and control groups. Treatment 1 was an interaction-based curriculum focused on the setting and communication of boundaries in relationships, the determination of wanted and unwanted behaviors, and the role of the bystander as intervener. Treatment 2 was a law and justice curriculum focused on laws, definitions, information, and data about penalties for sexual assault and sexual harassment. The control group did not receive either treatment. Pencil-and-paper surveys were designed for students to complete, and were administered either by a member of the research team or by teachers who were trained by a member of the research team in proper administration processes. Data were collected from three inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, from November 2006 to May 2007.  Surveys were distributed at three different times: immediately before the assignment to one of the three study conditions, immediately after the treatment (or control condition) was completed, and 5-6 months after their assignment to one of the three study conditions. The data  contain responses for 1,507 students over 3 waves. Additionally, researchers used multiple imputations for this dataset which resulted in 5 imputed datasets for each record for a total of 7,535 cases in the data file.  The data have 697 variables, including from such questions as whether someone had ever or in the past 6 months done something to the respondent such as slapped or scratched the respondent, hit the respondent, or threatened the respondent. Additionally, respondents were asked if they had done these same actions to someone else. Respondents were also asked a series of questions regarding whether they had ever been sexually harassed by someone or if they had sexually harassed someone themselves. Next, respondents were asked to rate whether they agreed with a series of statements such as "It is all right for a girl to ask a boy out on a date", "If you ignore sexual harassment, more than likely it will stop", and "Making sexual comments to a girl is wrong". Students were then asked to indicate whether a series of statements were true or false, such as "If two kids who are both under the age of 16 have sex, it is not against the law" and "If a person is not physically harming someone, then they are not really abusive". Respondents were then asked to read three scenarios and indicate how they would respond in that scenario. Also, students indicated how likely they would be to react in specified ways to a prepared statement. Data also provide demographic information such as age, gender, and ethnic/racial background, as well as variables to generically identify school district, school, and class period.