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Positive Peer Solutions: One Answer for the Rejected Student By Steven L. Rosenberg, Loren M. McKeon, and Thomas E. Dinero The authors describe an intervention strategy that helps alienated and disengaged students bond to school through "making a contribution to the whole."

ASK ANY parent or teacher to name the strongest influence on children today, and the most frequent response will be "the peer group," an observation supported equally by popular culture and by scientific research.1 The psychological pull of groups with social status has been used to explain many forms of behavior. From poodle skirts in the 1950s to cigarette smoking and drug use today, from the urge to own "Beanie Babies" to the idolatry surrounding quarterbacks and movie stars to the terror in Littleton, Colorado, we can observe many examples of this pull to conform and belong to a peer group.

We often hear parents and educators commiserating with one another about their inability to fight this force. How many parents or teachers have thrown up their hands at the latest song lyrics, the content of television programs, or the dress of the newest rock or rap group? The tragedy of the Columbine High School killings demonstrates beyond any question that negative peer interactions can lead to heinous consequences.

Peer pressure, television, Hollywood, parenting, video games, and the education establishment have all been blamed at one time or another for influencing -- or failing to influence -- children's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors across a wide spectrum of issues from classroom cheating to drug abuse and school violence. Once the particular problems have been identified, the corrective interventions selected by school authorities are typically remedial, working with students who have already exhibited problems or with those who fit one diagnostic profile or another.

These children, who are deemed to be at risk, have a higher chance of failure in school and in life than do other children. Many programs have been developed across the nation to build resiliency in such children. Although the intentions of these programs have been honorable, many have remained unsuccessful. For example, data collected from the Add Health project, a nationwide study of children at risk, imply that prevention programs fail because they are not based on theory, are not research based, use one-dimensional strategies, and focus on problem reduction rather than on enhancement of human development.2

An alternative intervention strategy, called Positive Peer Groups (PPG), has operated for the last nine years in grades 5-9 in both public and parochial school settings throughout northeastern Ohio. An outgrowth of the work of Donald Wonderly,3 the PPG model was designed and is currently being implemented by the Prevention Initiatives Division of PSI (Prevention: Systems Intervention) Affiliates, Inc., a private consortium of psychologists, educators, and prevention specialists who work in partnership with Michael Voinovich, director of government programs for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. PSI was founded to deliver a research-based, multi-tiered program of teacher, parent, and staff training; consultation; and -- most important -- direct services to students. The PPG program has recently begun serving students in the Akron public school system, especially those schools in the poorest urban areas within the district. Over the nine years in which the program has been implemented, it has come to include 81 schools and to serve more than 1,000 students annually.

In 1997 PSI was awarded Ohio's BEST Practices Award for its PPG program. The BEST Award honors innovative programs that have demonstrated significance, effectiveness, originality, transferability, and responsiveness to the varied educational needs of Ohio's diverse population. The award winners are chosen by a statewide coalition of school, business, and community organizations, chaired by the state superintendent of public instruction.

The PPG Approach

PPG is a leadership training program that helps alienated and disengaged students bond to school by giving them the opportunity to participate in school-oriented service activities and, in the process, to form constructive affiliations with peers who are involved in the same efforts. The intense power of the peer group is used to help students develop socially positive attitudes and a mature outlook toward school. There is strong evidence that this approach has an impact on such problems as school failure, school violence, delinquency, and substance abuse.4

PPG is based on a comprehensive vision of mental health, work, discipline, and responsibility within the school community.5 The PSI model defines mental health as the "extent to which individuals believe that they have both the power to control their environment and a sense of meaning that relates them to some superordinate level of existence."6 Superordinate levels may include society, peer groups, community, school, or an abstract idea. Individuals who find their personal meaning and sense of belonging through their work, whether they are straight-A students "working" at school studies or children who are well accepted by their peers, are considered mentally healthy. These students are more apt to perform proficiently, competently, and responsibly.

The PPG approach can be summarized in the statement "The best way to learn responsibility is to be given responsibility."7 Students are taught to develop independence by participating in group activities focusing on work, discipline, and responsibility. Adult facilitators encourage participation and involvement as the students learn to solve problems, make their own decisions, plan, and set measurable goals. The facilitators help the students to understand that these activities have allowed them to become contributing and responsible members of the school society.

Work is integrated into the curriculum as a positive concept -- a strong force for building an identity, not something to avoid or to view as oppressive. Simultaneously, discipline is a force that drives work and results in the willingness to work for its own sake and not for external rewards. Internalizing the work ethic encourages the students to cope with mature situations. Responsibility becomes an expectation to deliver on promises and to act consistently in an appropriate manner.8

Work, discipline, and responsibility interact synergistically as individual students become a team. The students are in control: facilitators act as a support system, providing training and assistance only when needed. It is the students' responsibility to identify a problem within the school community and then propose and execute a solution to that problem as a group. Identification occurs first with the group and then with the school. Students are introduced to the social structure of the school as adults would be and are asked to shoulder adult responsibilities within a team of their peers. The results have been impressive.

Students with a wide range of individual problems are recommended by teachers and administrators to participate in this program. Those students who are hostile to peers, potentially violent, disrespectful to teachers, socially isolated, neglected, rejected or ridiculed by their peers, engaged in illegal drug activities, and attracted to gangs can all benefit from PPG.

Each student in the program fits into one of several generalized patterns of success, failure, or disengagement within his or her peer group. "Negative leaders" are students who are socially liked because of their rebellious behavior; "rejected isolates" are those who are shunned and often ridiculed by their peers; and "neglected isolates" are those who are neither actively liked nor disliked, but rather ignored by the other students. In addition, "positive leaders," who are well-rounded students, are included in the mixture. Teachers immediately recognize these types of students and can easily assign them to their respective categories.

Integral to the success of this program is the inclusion of positive peer leaders in each group. These students themselves benefit from the program as their social skills, commitment to service, and dedication to helping their peers are all greatly enhanced as a result of their involvement. Although their role as peer models is not made explicit, their participation is central to the program's success.

While the PPG program addresses students' individual problems, it also serves to target schoolwide issues of concern. The identification of these systemwide concerns determines the types of service activities the student groups embark upon. One group, for example, designed a Racial Diversity Awareness Day to bring the issue of racial tension to the attention of students, teachers, and parents. Another group was particularly concerned about teen alcohol abuse. Their solution was to design a comprehensive Drinking Awareness Week. A different group, reacting to the media's intensive coverage of high school violence in general and to local physical fighting in particular, designed a weeklong Anti-Violence Campaign. Students participated in workshops and activities to help them respond more effectively to those who bully and threaten. Guest speakers addressed issues of safety and weapons.

Culminating activities for many Positive Peer Groups focus on peer tutoring and mentoring programs. These programs are excellent opportunities for disengaged students to occupy high-profile roles. Rather than always being the object of such special services as tutoring and counseling, in these programs the troubled students themselves become the tutors and mentors. They develop a constructive reputation while building their academic, organizational, and decision-making skills.

Another popular group theme is to help school authorities keep the buildings clean. Typically, PPG participants will organize committees and teams to take care of various aspects of their building. When these alienated students are given such responsibilities, they begin to feel attached to the school and committed to the satisfactory completion of their tasks; in this particular case, they feel responsible for keeping their building clean with their own hands.

The most exciting aspect of the PPG program is that the students organizing the solutions are the very students who had previously been part of the problem. All these programs give students opportunities to contribute responsibly and competently to their school in a way that helps build their own self-respect -- and, just as important, the positive respect of their peers.

Virtually all students recommended to participate in the program agree to join the group process voluntarily. Students who have not been recommended can also volunteer to take part. The program is presented as having high status and being associated with the "cool" kids. Those few recommended students who resist participation are counseled into joining.

The Process

Interest in the program is generated largely through a "kickoff" launched by the facilitators for the entire student body. Posters, announcements throughout the building, and student literature all describe participation in this as a privilege and an honor -- as a "cool" experience. Most students -- both those who are successfully integrated into the academic and social mainstream of the school community and those who are alienated from it -- regard PPG participation as valuable and desirable.

The actual PPG intervention is conducted in a 25-week block, beginning with group activities and culminating in a group project involving service to the school community. After parental permission is obtained for each participant, groups are formed and then stimulated to coalesce into a team. Students begin their experience by developing a plan for obtaining information about needs that exist in the school community. By planning and carrying out this "needs assessment," students begin to learn decision-making skills and how to interact appropriately with others, especially adults. The results of the needs assessment are discussed and used to determine the "service task" to be undertaken. The task is in turn planned and executed by the students themselves. At the conclusion of the program, the students conduct their own evaluation.

Group identity is encouraged from the beginning. Divisions among the students are used by the facilitator to teach conflict resolution and to help the group reach consensus. If someone volunteers to take group work home, for example (and this does happen), the facilitator will encourage that student to find a time when other group members can similarly contribute. As one facilitator commented, "Each member of the group is supposed to feel valuable -- that the group's success or failure depends on him or her."

"Closure" activities take place once the task has been accomplished. Reviewing the group's progress and evaluating the project's effectiveness reinforce the program's goals and reteach the primary objectives of the program.

An essential goal of the PPG program is to foster a personal sense of belonging and attachment to a positive peer network in students who otherwise have few positive options. Another is to encourage a mature attitude toward peers and school. These important goals help students develop a feeling of involvement with the entire educational process. Students who give to their school have an increased chance of developing an affinity toward their school. Kids want to belong! The PPG program makes this universal desire a reality for all students.

Program Outcomes

Several years of research studies provide both anecdotal evidence and test data supporting the program's goals and objectives. The effectiveness of the PPG model has been evaluated in several research projects involving more than 1,000 program participants and a large set of control subjects. The design was a pretest/posttest experimental control structure without the possibility of randomly assigning students to groups. Several standardized tests and other instruments were used to measure the program's results. These were the Behavioral Academic Self-Esteem rating scale, the Effective School Battery, the School Situation Survey, and PSI's own Global Teacher Rating Scale.9

The variables measured changed more in the experimental cluster than in the control group in most domain areas. These changes were significant in both statistical and practical ways. The students who experienced the program, for example, showed an improved attitude toward their teachers and principals. Some students were able to interact with their principals in ways they seemed to enjoy -- they reported that they were happy with the new experience of going to the principal's office for some reason other than punishment. When students have the opportunity to discuss with their teachers and principals something of importance to the school, they begin to realize that the adults in school are developing respect for them because of their performance. Many of these participants actually felt proud of their own growth and maturity.

Students who had been in the program also tended to demonstrate more initiative than students in the control group. This was attributable to the reinforcement they had received for certain behaviors. For example, setting group and personal goals, however small, elicited positive feedback from the facilitator and often from other members of the group. The facilitators also encouraged the students to develop plans to meet their goals and, with assistance from the group, to determine if and when their individual goals had been achieved.

When teachers and principals were asked to report any changes they had noticed in the participants, most gave positive responses. Because the groups were allowed to develop and function without an imposed agenda, the program naturally affected participants in different ways. One "very bright but negative leader," for example, now offers to help other group members and has become more patient with them. Another participant is now "more focused and more often on task" than previously. Larry (all names are pseudonyms) was a student "who had few friends and was picked on by many. Now he is outgoing, not afraid to stand up for himself." Other students have become much more sociable or, as in Marty's case, "definitely kinder and less negative." One teacher noted that Paul had "struggled to fit in since coming here in grade 5. His defenses won him only negative attention because he was intrusive, rude, and argumentative. Lately I've heard him using expressions that are redeeming: 'Excuse me.' 'I'm sorry; I didn't mean to interrupt.' I am witnessing a kinder, happier child who feels part of a team."

The underlying theme of the educators' comments is that students in the program had started behaving in ways that reflected a positive social awareness. The next most frequently mentioned benefits of the program were the students' maturity and improved oral communication skills. The students themselves reported enjoying the program, especially because it allowed them to participate actively and to assume adult responsibility.

Admittedly, a 25-week program in the middle grades cannot be expected to cure all ills. While the facilitators and other school personnel noted that some individuals had opened up and become more willing to talk in groups and to risk sharing their ideas with their peers, not all students reached that point. One girl, however, was so shy at the beginning of the program that her teachers could not hear her speak. She subsequently came out of her shell, became a group leader, and ended up volunteering to give a speech to all fifth- and sixth-graders at the end of the program.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that the group activities have had a significant ripple effect outside the program. Many group participants go on to become members of student councils or to fill other leadership roles. (In one group, four out of 12 previously disengaged children ran for council positions; three got elected.) Some students from the program reach out on their own to tutor younger students.

In summary, participants show more initiative and willingness to undertake new tasks than do their peers. More important, they seem to benefit from the group experience, becoming more cooperative and tolerant of individual differences. They demonstrate a greater awareness of the dynamics within the school organization and the roles that people play in a societal microcosm. These students have learned to work together as a team, some focusing for the first time on positive, constructive school experiences.

PPG participants are given responsibilities by their peers and are expected to execute these responsibilities. Each participant has learned to depend on others and, perhaps most important, to be depended upon. A recurring theme of the research is the importance of using peer pressure to promote social responsibility. If one's peers demand appropriate behavior, it is more likely that one will behave appropriately.

Positive Peer Groups supplant the role of groups such as gangs by giving students the social guidance and direct opportunities they need to grow as contributing members of society. This model is one workable recipe for creating responsible and dependable citizens by reducing the influence of negative peer pressure on adolescents.

The PPG program is ideally suited for students who need to strengthen their individual sense of responsibility, their commitment to education, and their social competency. When positive peer pressure is used to promote work, responsibility, and self-discipline, these critical components of maturity blend to bolster academic and social success. One principal summed up the effects of the program: "I have seen the growth of last year's Positive Peer Group as eighth-graders. The positive team-building experience was a real starting point in developing good group skills, commitment, and task completion." Such factors become the essence of resiliency in adolescence and young adulthood.

These programs, when implemented in a supportive administrative environment, are appropriate in alternative school settings as well as in traditional schools. Students in special education programs whose problems are exacerbated by an alienation from school, work, and peers also benefit from the opportunity to bond with others and with school.

The research has raised many provocative questions. But everyone who has been involved with the program agrees that the participating students become truly engaged in the activities and are on the road to integrating work and school into their lives. The success of the program illustrates the wisdom of the well-known tenet "We belong best when we make a contribution to the whole."

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Last updated 14 October1999
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Copyright 1999 Phi Delta Kappa International