KQED News Mind/Shift – Linda Flanagan
“Want to change your school’s culture? Start with the right students. A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals some important clues on how to change a school’s mores. The gist of the findings? To change school norms, the most well-connected students have to lead the way. Scholars Elizabeth Paluck, Hana Shepherd and Peter Aronow, who conducted the yearlong project in 56 New Jersey middle schools during the 2012-13 academic year, sought to discover the impact of student-led anti-conflict programs on kids’ behavior. When it was over, they found that groups led by influential students were most successful in changing the way fellow students treated one another. Indeed, in those schools where an average number of well-connected kids took part in the campaign, reports of student conflict dropped by 30 percent.”(more)