A Coordinated Community Response to Intimate Partner Violence on the College Campus

Recent statistics indicate that intimate partner violence is magnified on college campuses. In the university setting, victims of intimate partner violence may encounter numerous agencies (e.g., campus police, local courts, victim advocates) following reporting of victimization. The need for a coordinated community response to intimate partner violence of college students has been emphasized in recent years, yet little research has been conducted. This qualitative, exploratory study examines perceptions of 15 service providers in a recently implemented, campus-based, coordinated community response. Narrative data from semistructured interviews indicate that service providers are generally satisfied with the current response, but report a need for increased training and resources. Implications for future research, education, and public policy are discussed.     

Violent backgrounds of economically disadvantaged youth: Risk factors for perpetrating violence?

Adolescent Job Corps residents (n=474) reported the violence they had experienced, witnessed, and perpetrated with regards to parents, siblings, friends, and strangers. Results indicated that there was a high prevalence of all types of violence in this atrisk adolescent sample. Moreover, the majority of adolescents who reported violent experiences indicated threat or use of a weapon was involved. Gender differences were obtained such that boys reported perpetrating more aggression against friends and strangers than girls. Girls reported witnessing more parental aggression than boys. No gender differences in parental victimization rates were obtained. Contrary to prediction, parental victimization did not significantly predict perpetration towards siblings, friends, or strangers for either gender. However, parental victimization did predict increased violence towards parents. Surprisingly, for females especially, witnessing parental violence reduced the likelihood of violence towards parents. These findings support the need to include conflict resolution skills as a component of Job Corps training.     

Violent marriages: Gender differences in levels of current violence and past abuse

Military couples mandated for marital violence treatment (n=199) self-reported pretreatment levels of marital violence. This sample is unique in that data from both partners in severely violent marriages were available. Spouses were interviewed conjointly about past and current marital violence, childhood victimization, type of parental violence witnessed, and subjective impressions of childhood emotional and/or physical abuse. Results suggest that in the majority of these couples both husbands and wives reported engaging in acts of current marital violence (83%). However, significant gender differences were found such that husbands were more likely to use severely violent tactics, less likely to receive a marital violence injury, and less likely to report being afraid during the last incident of marital violence than wives. Surprisingly, wives were more likely than husbands to blame themselves for the first incidence of violence in the marriage. Husbands and wives did not differ in the prevalence of witnessing parental aggression, but wives were more likely than husbands to report being beaten as children and to perceive themselves as abused. For both genders, victimization from mother predicted marital perpetration, whereas victimization from father predicted marital victimization.     

Toward the Assessment of Procedural and Distributive Justice in Resolving Family Disputes

The first phase of this study focused on the development of comprehensive, conceptually integrated measures of procedural and distributive justice in the context of family decision making. In the second phase, these measures were used to examine older adolescents' justice appraisals of specific family disputes and the relation of these justice appraisals to family systems functioning along dimensions of conflict and cohesion. A Family Justice Inventory was constructed, which included two global indices (one for procedural justice and one for outcome fairness) and 13 subscales: 9 measuring specific facets of the procedural justice construct and 4 measuring specific dimensions of the distributive justice construct. Factor analysis revealed that the 13 Family Justice Inventory subscales could be reduced to 5 interpretable procedural justice factors (personal respect, status recognition, process control, correction, and trust) and 4 interpretable distributive justice factors (decision control, need, equality, and equity). Using procedural justice factor scores in regression analyses, personal respect, status recognition, correction, and trust each accounted for unique variance in family conflict and family cohesion. Using distributive justice factor scores in regression analyses, both decision control and need accounted for unique variance in family conflict and family cohesion. Using both procedural and distributive justice factor scores in regression analyses, personal respect, status recognition, and trust each accounted for unique variance in both family conflict and family cohesion. Additionally, equity also accounted for unique variance in family conflict but not family cohesion and the direction of the relationship was positive, that is, more equity in resolving specific family disputes was associated higher levels of general family conflict.     

Are There Gender Differences in Sustaining Dating Violence? An Examination of Frequency, Severity, and Relationship Satisfaction

One topic of debate within the field of intimate violence involves the equivalence, or lack thereof, of male-perpetrated versus female-perpetrated violence. To inform this debate, we examined potential gender-related differences in the frequency of sustaining violence, the severity of violence sustained, and effects of violence on relationship satisfaction. Data were collected from 2 samples of heterosexual undergraduates in dating relationships. In both studies, men and women experienced violence at comparable frequencies, although men experienced more frequent moderate violence. Rates of severe violence were extremely low for both sexes across studies. In both investigations, only women experienced lower relationship satisfaction as a function of partner violence. In Study 1, relationship status moderated this effect, such that women in serious dating relationships were less satisfied than either women in less serious relationships or than men as a function of partner violence. In Study 2, women were less satisfied with violent relationships than men regardless of relationship status. We contend that gender-sensitive approaches to relationship violence are important to better understand and prevent both male- and female-perpetrated violence. Directions for future research efforts are outlined.     

Research on Gender and the Law: Where Are We Going,Where Have We Been?

This article provides an overview of issues related to research on gender and the law. Following a discussion of the ways in which gender and the law interact, we assess the extent to which Law and Human Behavior (LHB) has addressed the issue of gender. Specifically, we present the results of our analysis of the role of gender in articles published in LHB from 1990 through 1996. We discuss the relatively few gender-relevant studies that appeared, as well as comment upon the attention given to gender by research with other primary foci. We then discuss various strategies for conducting gender research and their implications for research on gender and the law. We conclude by introducing the articles in this special issue on gender and the law, commenting on how they add to our accumulated knowledge in this area.     

An evaluation of de Jong-Giervald's loneliness model with Australian adolescents

This study concerns the prevalence of loneliness in a sample of adolescent Australian college students and examines the predictors of loneliness in this group, in particular the impact of social network characteristics, social network appraisal, the functions of friendship, and the psychosocial variables of identity and intimacy (Erikson, 1978) within the context of de Jong-Giervald's (1987) model of loneliness. One hundred and thirty- eight college students aged between 17 and 20 years from one regional and one city tertiary institution were surveyed to ascertain the level of experienced loneliness as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russellet al., 1980). Measures of intimacy and identity were obtained using the Erikson Psychosocial State Inventory (Rosenthalet al., 1981) while the functions of friendship in general and of a specific same- sex close friend were those established in a previous study (Moore and Boldero, 1987). Comparison of the levels of loneliness reported with those found by other studies suggested that Australian adolescents are no less vulnerable to the experience of loneliness than their American counterparts. In addition, while no quantitative sex differences in loneliness were found, qualitative differences emerged. Specifically, although psychosocial intimacy was the best predictor of loneliness for both male and female, the other independent predictors were different. For males having fewer same- sex friends and an inability to share feelings with a specific same- sex friend predicted loneliness whereas for females social network appraisal, the ability to engage in mutual aid with a specific same-sex friend, living with family, and psychosocial identity were important. These differences were discussed in terms of the impact that the differential socialization of male and female has on ability of adolescents to engage in close and satisfying interpersonal relationships. Suggestions for intervention were made.This research was supported by a grant from the Research and Development Committee, Melbourne College of Advanced Education.An earlier verison of this paper was presented at the Children and Families at Risk Conference, Ballarat, Australia, April 1989.Received M.A. in Psychology from University of Auckland, New Zealand. Ph.D. in Psychology at University of Melbourne currently being assessed. Current interests include interpersonal relationships of adolescents and adults.Received Ph.D. in Counseling from Florida State University. Current interests include psychology as applied to educational issues and adolescent development.