Educating Students to Be Prosocial at School

Abstract This chapter discusses the importance of students' prosocial behavior in preschool through high school. The chapter then discusses correlational research revealing that students who are more prosocial than their peers tend to have greater social and academic success in school. In addition, students have higher achievement when they have more classmates who are prosocial. Thus, increasing prosocial behavior should be of keen interest to educators. Indeed, the few studies that address classroom prosocial behavior suggest that promoting prosocial behavior may be more predictive of achievement than reducing problem behavior. Explanations for the relationship between prosocial behavior and school success are offered. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of how educators may promote increased prosocial behavior in the classroom. Several teaching practices, as well as formal curriculum-based programs, are discussed.