Positive perceptions of school climate are associated with lower frequency of peer victimization and aggression in children. Understanding "how" school climate influences aggression and victimization is essential to guiding school-level interventions to enhance character strengths such as social responsibility. In this short-term…

To better address the many consequences of peer victimization, research must identify not only aspects of individuals that put them at risk for victimization, such as aggression, but also aspects of the context that influence the extent of that risk. To this end, this study examined the contextual influences of gender, same-sex peer group norms of…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pilot school-based intervention called CEPIDEA, designed to promote prosocial behavior in early adolescence. The study took place in a middle school located in a small city near Rome. The intervention group included 151 students (52.3% males; M[subscript age] = 12.4), and the control group…

The primary aim of this study was to assess the moderating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between some components of social information processing (hostile interpretation and anger) and aggressive behavior. The secondary aim was to assess whether emotion regulation, hostile interpretation, and anger account for gender differences…

The research area around aggression and violence in schools, and especially that on school bullying, has grown enormously in the last 30 years. There are good grounds for concern about these issues, given the negative effects of school bullying on mental health and in the more extreme cases, links to suicides. Intervention and prevention programs…

The Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet) involves Canadian researchers and national organizations working to promote healthy relationships and prevent bullying. In this paper, we provide the rationale for establishing PREVNet, a description of the work of the network, and an assessment of the success of PREVNet.…

Aggressive behaviors in children and adolescents have undergone important conceptual and definitional modifications in the past two decades. In particular, subtypes of aggression have been proposed that separate the form and the function of the aggressive behaviors (i.e., social vs. physical aggression; reactive vs. proactive aggression).…