Classrooms in Peace Within Violent Contexts: Field Evaluation of Aulas en Paz in Colombia

Abstract

Classrooms in Peace (Aulas en Paz) is an elementary school-based multicomponent program for prevention of aggression and promotion of peaceful relationships. Inspired by international programs and socio-emotional research, it includes (1) a classroom universal curriculum, (2) parent workshops and home visits to parents of the 10% most aggressive children, and (3) extracurricular peer groups of two aggressive and four prosocial children. Activities seek to promote socio-emotional competencies such as empathy, anger management, creative generation of alternatives, and assertiveness. A 2-year quasi-experimental evaluation was conducted with 1154 students from 55 classrooms of seven public schools located in neighborhoods with the presence of youth gangs, drug cartels, and high levels of community violence in two Colombian cities. Despite several implementation (e.g., about half of the activities were not implemented) and evaluation (e.g., randomization problems, large number of missing data, and changes between treatment and control groups) challenges, positive results were found in prosocial behavior and in reduction of aggressive behavior, according to teacher reports, and in assertiveness and reduction of verbal victimization, according to student reports. Furthermore, implementation cost (25 US dollars per student per year) was very low compared to other programs in developed countries. This study shows that the Classrooms in Peace program has an important potential to generate positive results and highlights the challenges of implementing and evaluating prevention programs in highly violent environments.

Positive School Climate as a Moderator of Violence Exposure for Colombian Adolescents

“…() found positive effects of a classroom based intervention that explicitly addressed positive coping, trauma, and safety for improving socio‐behavioral outcomes and positive wellbeing in early adolescents affected by violence in Nepal. In Colombia, a multi‐tiered elementary school prevention initiative called Aulas en Paz (Classrooms in Peace) that provides both universal and targeted programming to enhance citizenship competencies, promote peace, and prevent violence (Chaux, ) led to reductions in aggressive behavior and improvements in prosocial behavior (Chaux et al., ). It is possible that comprehensive approaches that explicitly address trauma and violence are necessary to enhance development for youth affected by armed conflict.…”

Educación para la Paz, Convivencia Escolar y Resolución de Conflictos: Una revisión de programas de intervención

“…En un segundo momento, se incluyeron algunas publicaciones que permitían ganar profundidad en la información de los programas ya seleccionados en la primera búsqueda. Por ejemplo, el programa de intervención Aulas de Paz tenía artículos en las bases de datos como el de Jiménez et al (2010), pero había otros relacionados que ampliaban las descripciones del programa de intervención como el de Chaux et al (2017) y que no aparecieron en la búsqueda original.…”

“…1 Abriendo Puertas (Nölting, 2014) 1 España 2 Aulas en Paz (Chaux, 2012;Chaux, Bustamante, et al, 2008;Chaux et al, 2017;Chaux, Peña, et al, 2008;Jiménez et al, 2010;Patiño et al, 2015;Ramos et al, 2007) 8 Colombia A continuación, presentamos las características de los programas de intervención conforme a los tres ejes temáticos formulados anteriormente: a) Formación en habilidades y competencias, b) Estrategias implementadas, c) Enfoques de intervención, y d) Metodologías de enseñanza.…”

Procesos constructivos de contenidos de paz. Una mirada a emisoras del municipio de Bello (Colombia)

“…Allí la paz es el producto de la construcción en la que los sujetos, en este caso los niños, desempeñan un papel activo con el fomento de la capacidad argumentativa y de toma de decisiones en pro de un mayor bienestar social (Cinde, 2017). Asimismo, se encuentra el programa Aulas en paz (Chaux et al, 2017), liderado por la Universidad de los Andes. Este programa es de tipo "multicomponente" en tanto trabaja en la prevención de la agresión y la promoción de la sana convivencia mediante el trabajo con docentes, estudiantes y familias.…”