A systematic review and meta-analysis of the benefits of school-based, peer-led interventions for leaders

Abstract

The aim of our systematic review and meta-analysis was to quantitatively synthesise the effects of school-based peer-led interventions on leaders’ academic, psychosocial, behavioural, and physical outcomes. Eligible studies were those that: (i) evaluated a school-based peer-led intervention using an experimental or quasi-experimental study design, (ii) included an age-matched control or comparison group, and (iii) evaluated the impact of the intervention on one or more leader outcomes. Medline, Sportdiscus, Psychinfo, Embase, and Scopus online databases were searched on the 24th of October, 2022 which yielded 13,572 results, with 31 included in the narrative synthesis and 12 in the meta-analysis. We found large positive effects for leaders’ attitudes toward bullying (d = 1.02), small-to-medium positive effects for leaders’ literacy (d = 0.39), and small positive effects for leaders’ self-esteem (d = 0.18). There were mixed findings for behavioural outcomes and null effects for physical outcomes. Notable limitations of this research are the inclusion of a relatively small number of studies, and high heterogeneity in those included. Our findings have the potential to inform educational practice, but also highlight the need for further research examining the mechanisms that might account for the observed effects. Our systematic review was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021273129).

A Social Network Intervention to Improve Adolescents’ Intergroup Tolerance Via Norms of Equality-Based Respect: The “Together for Tolerance” Feasibility Study

“…Two results are worth noting: First, focus group members did not exhibit the same downstream trend as other students. Aligning with Wade et al (2022), this suggests that social referents may be the primary beneficiaries of such interventions. Second, we found that Create mechanisms for sustainment, such as leadership programs, independent implementation of the social referent approach by the staff individual students with high or partial exposure to the school-wide action led by social referents retained high average scores on outgroup tolerance compared to individuals who did not participate in the action, suggesting potential short-term (but not long-term) positive effects on tolerance resulting from peerled actions demonstrating equality-based respect and tolerance, which was suggested as one mechanism through which social referents can influence perceived norms and behaviors.…”