Detecting Domestic Violence: Spanish External Validation of the Index of Spouse Abuse

The aims of the study were to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA), and to validate it against external criteria of intimate partner violence. The Spanish version of the ISA was administered to 223 non-abused women and 182 victims of intimate partner violence. Internal consistency coefficients oscillated between 0.88 and 0.98. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis failed to replicate the original two-factor structure. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis, a two-factor solution was found: physical (ISA-P) and non-physical (ISA-NP), but the items included in each factor were slightly different from the original two subscales. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed an AUC value for the ISA global score of 0.99 (95% CI: 0.98–0.99), with the optimal cut-off of 12 for detecting intimate partner violence. The Spanish version of the ISA is a valid instrument for detecting intimate partner violence in a female population.     

Children,war and world disorder in the 21st century: a review of the theories and the literature on children's contributions to armed violence

Young populations, and particularly young males, have been attributed a proclivity to aggression and unrest that puts societies at risk. Theories about the dangers of a demographic ‘youth bulge’ inform public and policy debates about the predictors of violent conflict, as evidenced most recently in the World Bank's World Development Report for 2007. This paper assesses the validity and utility of claims linking youth bulges to civil conflicts by reviewing different literatures concerning naturalist ideas of young humans' innate aggression and cognitive incompetence as well as environmentalist ideas of environmental stimuli, processes of socialisation, and the dialectical relationship of structural conditions and human agency. This review finds that the moral panic propagated by youth bulge theorists is too often based on only one form of influence on human development and action, whether an aspect of environment, personal experience, or individual traits. A more cogent analysis must integrate the highly complex and dynamic processes involved in cognition and behaviour and aim to develop theories that take account of the social power, ideational and structural forms, and emotional and cognitive processes that young people experience and draw on in times of war.