Character Education, Prevention and Positive Youth Development

Research evidence from many well-designed and conducted studies shows that a more comprehensive approach to character education might be a much more efficient and cost-effective avenue to the prevention of behavior problems of students. Evidence states that this integrated character education format is more beneficial to the schools and the students than the adoption of a multitude of individual programs (such as bullying), each of which is focused on a particular social problem.

Integrated Character Education, which Building Good Citizens for Texas is based upon, is just such an approach to promote primary behavior problem prevention and positive youth development, with the added benefits of fostering academic achievement and character development for all students.

SOURCE:  “Journal of Research in Character Education”, Vol. 6, Number 2, 2008