Session: School-Based Prevention Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities (Society for Prevention Research 21st Annual Meeting)

Educational interventions have taken on increased importance in Sub-Saharan Africa as a vehicle to lift populations out of poverty and, in some instances, as a buffer against the chronic violence. In this symposium, three different school-based interventions will be described in three different countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Uganda. Each randomized control trial faces its own challenges and opportunities, both in implementation of the intervention and in collecting high quality data. The loci – two in primary schools and one in secondary schools -- and strategies of intervention program are quite different across the three countries. All three school-based interventions, however, are intended to change teacher practices and classroom processes. All three use behavioral observations to assess changes in teacher practices. The interventions to change teacher practices and their measurement will be a primary focus of the discussion in this symposium. This will include tailoring the measurement to the theory of change and the cultural context. Preliminary results will be presented.

The other major focus of the discussion will be on the challenges and opportunities of doing school-based preventive intervention research in Sub-Saharan Africa. The symposium chair will strive to get presenters to examine the similarities and differences in each of their projects and actively engage the audience in the discussion. The chair will also endeavor to get presenters and audience members to contrast the challenges and opportunities of this international research with that of domestically oriented school-based preventive research: where are the similarities and differences? What lessons are to be learned?