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A comprehensive elementary school program, the Child Development Project, was conducted in two schools in each of six school districts over a three-year period. Two additional schools in each district served as a comparison group. The program attempts to create a 'caring community of learners' in school and classroom through classroom, schoolwide, and parent involvement components. The classroom component includes student collaboration, a literature-based approach to reading, and a student-centered approach to classroom management. Classroom observation, student questionnaire, teacher questionnaire, and test data were collected in a baseline year and in each of the three years of program implementation. Results showed positive student results in the five program schools that made significant progress in implementation. Schools that progressed in implementation showed gains - relative to their comparison schools - in students' personal, social, and ethical attitudes, values, and motives. Significant effects on academic achievement were found only in two schools with a performance-based assessment and a highly consistent local reform mandate. Modeling analyses indicated that student sense of community was an important mediating variable for almost all dependent variables - indicating that the program produced positive effects to the degree that it was successful in establishing a caring community in the school.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine relationships between students' sense of school community, poverty level, and student attitudes, motives, beliefs, and behavior among a diverse sample of 24 elementary schools. Major findings were that: (a) within schools, individual students' sense of school community was significantly associated with almost all of the student outcome measures. (b) Between schools, school-level community and poverty were both significantly related to many of the student outcomes (the former positively, the latter negatively). (c) Most of the relationships between school community and student measures held for schools at different poverty levels. (d) Several significant interactions between school community and poverty level indicated that some of the strongest positive effects of school community occurred among schools with the most disadvantaged student populations.

This research examined the effects at follow-up during middle school of a comprehensive elementary-school intervention program, the Child Development Project, designed to reduce risk and promote resilience among youth. Parental consent to participate in the middle school study was obtained for 1,246 students from six program and six matched comparison elementary schools. Three of the program elementary schools were in the \"high implementation\" group, and three were in the \"low implementation\" group during the elementary school study. Findings indicated that, studywide, 40% of the outcome variables examined during middle school showed differences favoring program students, and there were no statistically reliable differences favoring comparison students. Among the \"high implementation\" group, 65% of the outcome variables showed differences favoring program students. Overall, program students were more engaged in and committed to school, were more prosocial and engaged in fewer problem behaviors than comparison students during middle school. Program students who experienced high implementation during elementary school also had higher academic performance, and associated with peers who were more prosocial and less antisocial than their matched comparison students during middle school. Implications of these findings for prevention programming are discussed.

Although prior research has shown sense of community in schools to be related to many positive student characteristics, effective interventions that can create or enhance this sense have not been demonstrated. In this paper we describe a comprehensive elementary school program, implemented by teachers, that was successful in creating a sense of community in the classrooms, as perceived by students. The program was implemented in three elementary schools in a suburban school district; three additional schools in the same district served as a comparison group. The program, which emphasized cooperative learning, the importance of democratic and prosocial values, student autonomy and self‐direction, and a child‐centered approach to teaching and classroom management, was experienced by a cohort of students from kindergarten through Grade 4, and by a subset of that cohort through Grade 6. Sense of community was assessed—by questionnaire—in Grades 4, 5, and 6; various student outcomes were assessed via questionnaire and interview. Results indicated that the program was successful in heightening students’ sense of community, and that the sense of community—by itself and in combination with program status—related positively to a number of student outcomes. There was also suggestive evidence that students who experienced their classroom as a community attempted to abide by its norms and values, and that the authority structure of the classroom was an important determinant of students’ experience of community and of some of its observed effects.

Eric Schaps is founder and president of the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, California. Established in 1980, DSC specializes in designing educational programs and evaluating their effects on children’s academic, ethical, social, and emotional development. The center has a full time staff of sixty; its work has been supported by forty philanthropic foundations and governmental agencies; its in-school and after-school programs have been recognized as exemplary in a number of governmental and other program effectiveness reviews. Dr. Schaps is the author of three books and over sixty book chapters and articles on school change, character education, and preventing problem behaviors. He serves on several boards, including the education advisory board of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.