Recent research demonstrating that relational aggression is associated with peer relationship difficulties, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, social processing deficits, and possibly later mental health disorders among girls has emphasized the need to address the unique expression of aggression amongst females. Despite these findings, almost all aggression interventions have been directed towards physically aggressive boys. In the current manuscript, authors describe the acceptability and initial effectiveness of a culturally-adapted social problem solving/social skills intervention for inner-city third to fifth grade urban, African American, relationally aggressive girls called the Friend to Friend Program. The authors partnered with youth, teachers, parents, and playground supervisors to design the program, and the current study presents preliminary data suggesting that the intervention is viewed as highly acceptable by participating girls and teachers. Further, the intervention appears to have promise for decreasing at-risk girls' levels of relationally and physically aggressive behaviors, hostile attributions, and loneliness.

While much prior research has documented the negative associations between aggression, peer relationships, and social skills, other research has begun to examine whether forms of aggression also may be associated with prosocial skills and increased social status. However, few studies have examined these associations within diverse samples of elementary aged youth. The current study examined the associations between aggression, popularity, social preference, and leadership among 227 urban, ethnic minority (74 % African American, 9 % bi-racial including African American, 12 % other ethnic minorities, and 5 % European American) elementary school youth (average age 9.5 years, 48.5 % female). Results indicated that in an urban, high risk environment, displaying aggressive behaviors was associated with increased perceived popularity, decreased social preference, and, in some cases, increased perceived leadership. The results also suggested gender differences in the association between the forms of aggression (i.e. relational and overt) and popularity. The current study underscores the importance of examining youth leadership along with forms of aggression and social status among urban minority youth. Implications for future research and aggression prevention programming are highlighted.

The climate of school classrooms, shaped by a combination of teacher practices and peer processes, is an important determinant for children's psychosocial functioning and is a primary factor affecting bullying and victimization. Given that there are relatively few theoreticallygrounded and validated assessment tools designed to measure the social climate of classrooms, our research team developed an observation tool through participatory action research (PAR). This article details how the assessment tool was designed and preliminarily validated in 18 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classrooms in a large urban public school district. The goals of this study are to illustrate the feasibility of a PAR paradigm in measurement development, ascertain the psychometric properties of the assessment tool, and determine associations with different indices of classroom levels of relational and physical aggression. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptRecent research has shown that the social climate of classrooms can have a significant bearing on students' psychosocial functioning and adaptation during the elementary school years, including their social competence (Wilson, Pianta, & Stuhlman, 2007) ). In addition, an increasing number of bullying prevention programs have recognized the importance of the classroom climate and have developed classroom-based components to improve teacher responsiveness to interpersonal aggression and conflict situations among students (Doll, Song, & Siemers, 2004;Olweus & Limber, 1999). Despite the growing emphasis on enhancing classroom climate, there are few validated, theoretically grounded assessment tools that have been designed specifically to assess the social quality of classrooms and to ascertain actual mechanisms within these settings associated with student aggression. This article describes the development of a classroom-based observation tool that was designed to provide a brief index of classroom climate. We discuss the rationale behind its development (particularly as it relates to challenging urban classroom settings), its current psychometric properties, and its utility for aggression and bullying prevention programming and teacher training.Structured observations of student behaviors in the classroom are one of the most commonly used assessment methods by school-based practitioners (Shapiro & Heick, 2004). However, current observational practice has several limitations. First, professionals tend to rely upon informal and anecdotal observations as opposed to using systematic observational systems with predefined target behaviors (Volpe, DiPerna, Hintze, & Shapiro, 2005). Second, many classroom-based observation systems are often helpful in planning and monitoring the treatment of specific at-risk children (Volpe et al., 2005), but they do not generally provide information about the overall classroom environment, how teachers relate to their students, or the quality of the teaching and learning environment. The classroom observatio...

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of the Friend to Friend (F2F) aggression intervention through a clinical trial with urban African American girls. Method: A randomized parallel-group study design was conducted comparing the effectiveness of F2F to an attention control condition (called Homework Study Skills and Organization, HSO) among relationally aggressive girls from six urban low-income elementary schools. Analyses of covariance were utilized for comparing post-test measurement between the two conditions while adjusting for pre-test measurement. For those outcomes with significant intervention effects between the two conditions at post-test, we examined whether the effects were maintained from post-test to follow-up among girls in the F2F group. Results: Results suggest that aggressive girls in F2F decreased their levels of relational aggression and increased their knowledge of social problem solving skills as compared to similar girls randomized to HSO, both of which were maintained at the one-year follow up. Conclusion: Programs developed through extensive partnership-based approaches, such as the F2F Program, may have promise for addressing the needs of urban high-risk girls in an acceptable and culturally-sensitive manner.