The moral alphabet: A workshop for the prevention of aggressive behaviour in school

The goal of our contribution is twofold: on one hand we wish to present a work method with moral dilemmas for the prevention of aggressive behaviour, on the other, we wish to account for the effectiveness of the intervention presented. We developed a moral alphabet training based on Bandura’s mechanisms of moral disengagement. Our training was conceived to increase the adolescent’s level of moral reasoning and judgment process in a bullying situation. The training was tested on secondary school subjects; the experimental group and the control group were administered a moral disengagement test, pre- and post-test. The first results show significant differences between the two groups, with lower scores for the experimental group on a moral disengagement scale. Aims Considering the importance of school for adolescents’ adjustment processes, and considering also the growing number of aggression and deviance episodes in the school context, prevention should focus on the development of self-regulation abilities, which are fundamental for the promotion of well-being and the prevention of social and relational impairment. Our moral skills development intervention aimed at stimulating students’ acknowledgment of their own reasoning models, as well as the promotion of alternative models in various situations and the respective solutions, thus promoting conflict-resolution abilities. Through research, we have evaluated the extent of the effects of group discussions regarding moral dilemmas, in terms of the reduction of the “moral disengagement” construct, whom social-cognitive theory identifies as the major cause of aggressive behaviour.