Social Norms Health and Safety Promotion
for Middle Schools and High Schools

The approach for schools supported by this project employs a comprehensive print and electronic social norms marketing campaign to reduce harmful misperceptions about student alcohol, tobacco, other drug, health, and school safety norms. Program components include (1) a new inexpensive and efficient web-based strategy for determining local norms and perceptions, (2) a print media campaign to communicate the local norms, (3) new electronic media to expand and enhance student exposure and engagement, and (4) curriculum development to infuse conversations about these issues into the classroom. This project provides leadership in alcohol and other drug prevention nationally through research publications, conference presentations and workshops, focused school consulting and training, and through development of electronic tools for social norms delivery.

Recent research on thousands of middle and high school students from across the nation shows clear and pervasive misperceptions of alcohol, tobacco, other drug, health, and safety norms. Moreover, the pattern of emergence of these misperceptions by grade clearly point toward key developmental periods for strategic prevention intervention.

2008 Survey results from over 52,000 secondary students from 78 middle and high schools in eleven regionally diverse states was recently completed and presented at the 2008 National Conference on the Social Norms Approach in San Francisco, California. The presentation abstract and results handouts can be downloaded here.

2005 Survey results from over 28,000 secondary students from 50 middle and high schools in eight regionally diverse states was presented at the 2005 International Social Norms Conference in Toronto, Canada. The presentaton abstract and results handouts can be downloaded here.

Survey results from over 3,800 New Jersey students in 2006 attending 7 high schools across the state.

Some additional sample results from a single school can be seen by viewing the links below:

• Alcohol Norms and Perceptions among middle and high school students

• Tobacco Norms and Perceptions among middle and high school students

• Illicit Drug Norms and Perceptions among middle and high school students

• Provide a workshop on the Social Norms Approach - bringing theory into practice
  

• Provide training and resources for data collection in a school social norms prevention program
  

• Provide training and development of print media for a social norms prevention program
  

• Provide training and development of electronic media for a social norms prevention program
  

• Provide workshops and teacher training on ATOD curriculum infusion
  

• Any of our survey instruments can be used with questions customized for your needs. Secure user accounts can be established to ensure the integrity of your data. Thousands of middle and high school students have participated in these surveys in recent years from across the country.
  

• You may try out a sample survey below that has been customized for many of our participating middle and high schools. The survey is available in both English and in Spanish.

• Survey focusing on ATOD norms, healthy life styles, school safety, and traffic safety. (Enter test for the username and test for the password at the logon screen.)
  
  
• Survey focusing on Bullying. (Enter test for the username and test for the password at the logon screen.)
  

• Automatic coding by our web server means that results can be made available as soon as the surveys have been completed.

• Newspaper columns reporting characteristics and accomplishments of the student body.
  

• Newspaper and Poster Advertisements reporting positive norms to the school community.

• Catalog of Media. Check out this catalog of media created by school districts implementing social norms prevention programs.

• Communicating school norms through computer networks expands the capabilities and intensity of program ose by bringing messages to desktops across the school. Posters and messages can be intantaneously deployed without printing and distribution costs. Updates can be made as new information becomes available. See screen-shot illustrations of software tools that we have developed below.

• Screen Saver- Broadcasts social norms messages without relying on a user to start the program. Computer self-initiates this screen saver program.
  

• Multimedia Interactive Campus Factoids and Reactiods- Students can browse previously published Campus Factoids and related student-produced videos, supplementary survey research data, and photos.
  

• World Wide Web Site Resource for Students and Faculty- Brings social norms information while supporting academic work. Creates research resources for the campus community and deliver prevention messages along the way.

• Workshops for developing faculty interest in ATOD issues - helping faculty from a variety of disciplines to get together and discuss ways in which they might integrate readings, discussion, projects, etc. about alcohol and other drugs into their existing courses or into new courses they plan to develop.
  

We do not yet have program impact from our work with schools. These projects are still in their early stages. However, we do have the results of four years of intensive social norms programming on our small residential college in upstate New York. We share some of these results so that you can see a little bit of what can be achieved. More outcome measures of social norms education can be reviewed in the Jeffrey Linkenbach, Michael Haines, and William Hansen articles found below.

• Impact of a social norms intervention at Hobart and William Smith Colleges

• The DCP/SAFE social norms campaign in DeKalb, IL has a web site with sample posters and outcome measures in a school setting. See this link for more information on their project.

• Here a Salt Lake Tribune article about the project in Park City, Utah.

• Guide to Marketing Social Norms for Health Promotion in Schools and Communities.
  A comprehensive and practical guidebook authored by Michael Haines, H. Wesley Perkins, Richard Rice and Gregory Barker published by the National Social Norms Resource Center Center in 2004. This guidebook gives a theoretical overview as well as step by step tasks for implementing a social norms marketing intervention in high school and community settings. (104 pages)

• HWS Alcohol Education Project
  The Alcohol Education Project of Hobart and William Smith Colleges is a broad collection of education and research initiatives designed to better inform students and college personnel about alcohol and other drugs and related social norms and address problems of abuse.

• The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention and a social norms site
  This U.S. Department funded organiation offers numerous resources for prevention including publications, bibliographies, grant information.

• National Social Norms Institute
  Based at the University of Virginia. this institute offers examples of other social norms campaigns and research.

• The Truth About Teen Alcohol Use 101: A Social Norms Approach. The Truth About Alcohol Use is a groundbreaking video that uses a social norms approach to show high schools students that most of their peers DO NOT DRINK. In it Dr. David Craig investigates the difference between what Riverfront High School students perceive and what is really true at their school. An anonymous survey gives typical results: While Riverfront teens assume others drink, actually most do not. Produced by: Discover Films, Inc.

• Perkins, H. Wesley (Editor). 2003. The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Click here for book contents and publisher ordering information
  
• Perkins, H. Wesley, and David W. Craig. 2003. "The Imaginary Lives of Peers: Patterns of Substance Use and Misperceptions of Norms among Secondary School Students." In H. W. Perkins (ed.), The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  
• Linkenbach, Jeffrey W. and Perkins, H. Wesley. 2003. "MOST of Us Are Tobacco Free: An Eight-Month Social Norms Campaign Reducing Youth Initiation of Smoking in Mondana." In H. W. Perkins (ed.), The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  
• Haines, Michael P., Barker, Gregory P., and Rice, Richard. 2003. "Using Social Norms to Reduce Alcohol and Tobacco Use in Two Midwestern High Schools." In H. W. Perkins (ed.), The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  
• Perkins, H. Wesley and Craig, David W.. 2002. A Multifaceted Social Norms Approach to Reduce High-Risk Drinking: Lessons from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention and the U.S. Department of Education. (Download entire article from HEC in PDF format
  
• Perkins, H. Wesley. 1995. "Prevention through Correcting Misperceptions of Alcohol and Other Drug Norms: Notes on the State of the Field." Catalyst (A Publication of The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention and the U.S. Department of Education). Vol. 1, No.3, pp. 1-2.
  
• Perkins, H. Wesley. 1997. "College Student Misperceptions of Alcohol and Other Drug Norms among Peers: Exploring Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Prevention Programs." Pp. 177-206 in Designing Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Programs in Higher Education. The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, U.S. Department of Education (download entire article from HEC).
  
• William B. Hansen, "School-Based Alcohol Prevention Programs" Alcohol Health and Research World, 17, 1993, pp54-60
  
• William B. Hansen and John H. Graham, "Preventing Alcohol, Marijuana, and Cigarette Use among Adolescents: Peer Pressure Resistance Training versus Establishing Conservative Norms", Preventive Medicine, 20,1991, pp414-430 {multi-school pre-post evaluation of norms education intervention in comparison with resistance training intervention}
  
• Alice Evans and Kris Bosworth, "Building Effective Drug Education Programs", Research Bulletin, December 1997 (published by the Center for Evaluation, Development, and Research for Phi Delta Kappa International) {review of literature, including program reviews of school-based stategies}
  
• The DCP/SAFE social norms campaign in DeKalb, IL has a web site with sample posters and outcome measures in a school setting. See this link for more information on their project.
  
• Alan D. Berkowitz, "The Social Norms Approach: Theory, Research and Annotated Bibliography", Revised August 2004. This document is provided by the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention.

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