Evidence Review: The effect of education programs on violence, crime, and related outcomes

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Global Evidence to Local Action in Central America: Understanding, localizing, and using evidence on education’s role in preventing violence

Proposal

The education sector plays a key role in the academic and non-academic development of children and youth as they progress to adulthood. Children and youth across this wide age range are in different stages of development, and their propensity to be victims or perpetrators of violence and crime changes as they age. Young people of different ages also vary in their responsiveness to different types of education interventions, depending on their stage of development, but they all have characteristics that can be affected by education interventions. This report summarizes available global evidence on the potential of education sector programs and policies to prevent and mitigate violence and crime, particularly in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) commissioned this review and evaluation of evidence to help education development stakeholders to make informed education programming decisions. The report synthesizes the available evidence, identifies programs that show potential to mitigate crime and violence and identifies gaps for future research.

The conceptual framework, or theory of change, on how this happens is based on evidence showing that children and youth are most likely to avoid violence and crime if they remain safely engaged in school and continue their learning, while developing the social-emotional skills that will help them to avoid involvement in risky behaviors, violence, and crime. The lead organization presents this conceptual framework, the search and review protocol, and findings from the review of 475 eligible studies available globally. Because of the nascent evidence base on some programs’ role in preventing violence, this review also includes evidence on the link between promising programs and outcomes that are correlated with violence and crime. The presentation will describe the state of the global evidence, with a focus on the Latin American and Caribbean region, on the role education programming can play in improving violence, crime, and related outcomes. The presentation will also discuss recommendations regarding promising education interventions to consider funding, particularly in the LAC region, as well as promising avenues of future research.

Author

• Emilie Bagby, Mathematica