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Using children's literature to decrease moral disengagement and victimization among elementary school students
Author(s) -
Wang Cixin,
Goldberg Taryn S.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/pits.22042
Subject(s) - psychology , disengagement theory , moral disengagement , developmental psychology , intervention (counseling) , perception , curriculum , social psychology , clinical psychology , pedagogy , medicine , gerontology , neuroscience , psychiatry
Previous research has suggested that moral disengagement is strongly associated with bullying and bystander behavior. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a 5‐week classroom‐wide bullying intervention, The Bullying Literature Project‐Moral Disengagement Version (BLP‐MD) , on moral disengagement and bullying among elementary school students. A quasiexperimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the BLP‐MD . A sample of 84 third grade students ( M age = 7.93 years, 53.6% female) from four classrooms and their teachers participated in this study. The results revealed significant time by treatment interactions for decreasing both victimization and moral disengagement in treatment classrooms compared to waitlist control classrooms. The program also resulted in improved perception of peer friendships and was rated as having high social validity for both students and their teachers. How to incorporate the BLP‐MD into the general language arts curriculum to decrease moral disengagement and bullying, and promote positive bystanding is discussed.