Program Profile: Shifting Boundaries (Classroom Curriculum and Schoolwide Intervention)

This dual intervention aims to reduce peer violence and sexual harassment in middle schoolers by emphasizing consequences and increasing surveillance of unsafe areas. The program is rated Promising. The intervention group had statistically significant reductions in sexual victimization and in violence victimization and perpetration compared with those in the control group. There were no statistically significant effects on sexual harassment perpetration, or knowledge, attitudes, or intentions.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals

Shifting Boundaries is a two-part intervention—a classroom curriculum and schoolwide component—designed to reduce peer and dating violence and sexual harassment among middle school students by highlighting the consequences of this behavior and by increasing faculty surveillance of unsafe areas within the school. This primary prevention program aims to

• Increase knowledge and awareness of sexual abuse and harassment.
• Promote prosocial attitudes and a negative view of dating violence and sexual harassment.
• Promote nonviolent behavioral intentions in bystanders.
• Reduce the occurrence of dating violence and peer violence.
• Reduce the occurrence of sexual harassment.

Target Population

Research suggests that adolescents can experience dating violence and sexual harassment as young as sixth grade (Callahan, Tolman, and Saunders 2003). Thus, the Shifting Boundaries intervention is designed for middle school students in sixth and seventh grades.

Program Activities

Shifting Boundaries is an intervention designed to reduce the incidence and prevalence of dating violence and sexual harassment among adolescents. The intervention consists of two parts: a classroom-based curriculum and a schoolwide component.

Classroom curriculum. The classroom curriculum has six sessions that cover 1) the construction of gender roles, 2) the setting and communicating of boundaries in interpersonal relationships, 3) healthy relationships, 4) the role of the bystander as intervener, 5) the consequences of perpetrating, and 6) the state and federal laws related to dating violence and sexual harassment. The six lessons are flexible with current school schedules and are taught over 6 to 10 weeks. Lessons are taught by trained substance misuse prevention and intervention specialists.

These six lessons use both concrete/applied materials and abstract thinking components. Two of the activities consist of students measuring their own personal space and creating “hot spot” maps of their school that highlight safe and unsafe spaces regarding dating violence and sexual harassment. The curriculum includes a fact-based component based on the idea that increased knowledge of facts and about consequences of one’s behaviors are appropriate and useful primary prevention tools. Facts and statistics about sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, and the legal definitions of all these terms are part of this fact-based component. Students explore the concepts of laws and boundaries, consider laws as they apply by gender, plot the shifting nature of personal space, learn how to help a friend in need, and learn about other sources of help. One of the last activities dictates that students sign the Respecting Boundaries Agreement, which is tied to prohibited behaviors in the school rules.

Schoolwide intervention. The second component of Shifting Boundaries is a school-level intervention. This intervention affects the entire school building and consists of revising school protocols for identifying and responding to dating violence and sexual harassment, the introduction of temporary school-based restraining orders, and the installation of posters in the school to increase awareness and reporting of dating violence/harassment. Another component helps schools work with students to identify any unsafe areas of the building through hotspot mapping. The classroom curricula and the schoolwide intervention are linked, as the student hotspot maps of unsafe areas in school are used to determine the placement of faculty or school security for greater surveillance of these areas. The building interventions are conducted on the same schedule as the classroom curricula, lasting 6 to 10 weeks.

Program Theory

The design of these interventions was informed by the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) [Ajzen and Fishbein 1980; Fishbein 1967]. TRA explains the main elements and inputs that result in any specific behavior; it proposes that one’s attitude toward a behavior consists of a belief that the behavior leads to a type of outcome and an assessment of that outcome. If the assessment of the outcome is positive, the individual may then intend to or actually carry out such behavior. Further, attitudes toward and perceived norms about the desired behavior affect the intention to change, modify, or adopt a specific behavior. The Shifting Boundaries interventions were designed to address elements of the theory, with the belief that increased knowledge would change attitudes, which in turn affects behavioral intentions leading to behavioral change (Taylor et al. 2011).

Study

Taylor and colleagues (2011) used an experimental design with random assignment to determine the effect of the Shifting Boundaries intervention on adolescent peer violence and sexual harassment victimization and perpetration. During September 2009 to June 2010 the research team randomly assigned New York City middle schools to one of four conditions: 1) the classroom-based intervention only, 2) the schoolwide intervention only, 3) both classroom and schoolwide interventions, and 4) a control (no intervention) group. Thirty schools completed the study and implemented their assigned condition as planned. The assignment to condition was as follows: six schools and 23 classrooms received only the classroom-based intervention; eight schools and 30 classrooms received only the schoolwide intervention; seven schools and 28 classrooms received both the school and the classroom intervention; and nine schools and 36 classrooms were the control group. The control group went through its normal class schedule and did not receive any of the elements of the classroom intervention or the schoolwide intervention. The CrimeSolutions review of this study focused on the comparison of students who participated in both the classroom and schoolwide interventions (the third intervention condition) with students in the control (no intervention) group.

The ethnic breakdown of the study sample (all four groups) was 34 percent Hispanic, 31 percent Black, 16 percent Asian, 13 percent White, with the remainder in the “other” racial category. The sample was evenly split between sixth and seventh grade students, with 1,266 students (48 percent) in sixth grade and 1,388 students (52 percent) in seventh grade. Participating students ranged in age from 10 to 15, with 94.5 percent falling in the 11-to-13 age range. Fifty-three percent of the overall sample was female.

In addition, baseline measures show that 40 percent of the study sample had prior experience with a violence prevention educational program. Nearly half of the sample (48 percent) reported at least one experience of being in a dating relationship that lasted 1 week or longer. About one in five respondents (19.4 percent) reported having been the victim of any physical or sexual dating violence at some point in time. Two thirds of the sample (66 percent) reported having been the victims of any physical or sexual peer violence at some point in time. One in five respondents (20 percent) reported having perpetrated any physical or sexual dating violence at some point in time. Nearly three out of five (57 percent) reported having perpetrated any physical or sexual peer violence at some point, and nearly half (45.8 percent) reported having sexually harassed someone at some time.

Comparison indicated there were no statistically significant differences between students in all four groups at baseline in age, gender, prior experience with dating violence–prevention programs, the length of their prior dating relationships, any peer violence victimization in their lifetimes, and any dating violence victimization in their lifetimes.

Data collection and measurement occurred at three different times: immediately before group assignment (baseline), immediately after the six lessons were completed, and 5 to 6 months after the conclusion of lessons (follow-up). The student surveys took about 40 minutes to complete and were administered during one classroom period. Student surveys were divided into five sections, measuring 1) knowledge, 2) attitudes, 3) behavioral intentions, 4) actual behavior, and 5) demographic information. The knowledge measures included questions about state rape laws, definitions of abuse and sexual harassment, resources for help, rape myths, and skills such as conflict resolution. Attitudinal measures covered the acceptability of violent, abusive, and harassing behaviors. The behavioral intentions were measured from responses about the willingness to intervene in harmful situations and interrupt harassment. Actual behavior was measured by self-reports of perpetration and victimization of dating violence and sexual harassment. The frequency (number of occurrences of a repeated event) was measured for the victimization and perpetration outcomes. The demographic portion of the survey covered standard age, gender, race, and ethnicity questions and prior attendance at an educational program about sexual assault, harassment, or violence, and prior history of dating.

Because of the clustered nature of the data (individuals within classrooms within schools), specific statistical procedures were used to account for the clustering. Dichotomous outcome variables were analyzed with logistic regression that included a robust variance estimate that adjusted for within-cluster correlation. Negative binomial regression with a robust variance estimate was used for all count data (e.g., “how many times were you victimized?”). Ordinary least-squares regression with a robust variance estimate was used for the normally distributed/linear outcomes such as the knowledge, attitude, and intention measures. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

The 2011 report by Taylor and colleagues provides a copy of the classroom-based curriculum, the schoolwide curriculum, blank and color-coded blueprints of the school building for the “hot spot” mapping of unsafe areas within the school, fidelity and attendance worksheets, and a copy of the Respecting Boundaries Agreement: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/236175.pdf.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Programs to Reduce Dating and Sexual Violence for Youth and Young Adults

This practice involves a range of prevention and intervention programs that are designed to address problems associated with dating violence for youth and young adults. The practice is rated Effective for reducing the perpetration of dating violence and improving dating violence knowledge and attitudes. The practice is rated No Effects for reducing dating and sexual violence victimization, reducing sexual violence perpetration, and for improving bystander behaviors.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Attitudes & Beliefs - Dating violence knowledge
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Dating violence attitudes
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Victimization - Bystander behavior and intentions
	Crime & Delinquency - Sex-related offenses
	Victimization - Sexual abuse/exploitation
	Victimization - Domestic/intimate partner/family violence

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?