printed from http://www.smokefreeclass.info/home.htm

The Idea of the Competition

Smokefree Class Competition is funded by the European Commission.

Smokefree Class Competition is a smoking prevention programme that reaches for three main goals:

• Delay or prevention of the onset of smoking.
• Cessation of smoking of pupils who have already experimented with smoking in order to hinder them from becoming regular smokers.
• Engagement in further creative class or school-wide activities promoting non smoking and health

The idea of the Smokefree Class Competition is distinct to those traditional approaches, because instead of using fear arousal strategies to hinder pupils from smoking, the desired non-smoking behaviour is reinforced: Non smokers are rewarded if they stay smokefree.

According to learning theory a positive reinforcement enhances the propability of producing a desired behaviour. In this way non smoking becomes a popular and worthwhile behaviour, and social norms whithin the peer groups are influenced in a way that non smoking becomes more common in classes than smoking.