NCJ Number
243233
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 42 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2013 Pages: 518-535
Date Published
April 2013
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This research explores the factors that may increase or reduce the perpetration of dating violence.
Abstract
Given prevalence rates and negative consequences that adolescents' perpetration of dating violence may have on an individual's well-being and future relationships, it is imperative to explore factors that may increase or reduce its occurrence. Thus, the authors aimed to identify how multiple contextual risk factors (individual, family, schools, and neighborhoods) were related to adolescents' perpetration of dating violence over a 6-year period. Then, the authors assessed how neighborhood collective efficacy, an important predictor of urban youths' well-being, buffered the relationship between each of the risk factors and adolescents' perpetration of dating violence. Three waves of data from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study were used (N = 765; Ages 16-20 at Wave 3). The sample is 53 percent female, 42 percent African-American, and 53 percent Hispanic. For the total sample, drug and alcohol use, low parental monitoring, academic difficulties, and involvement with antisocial peers were significant early risk factors for perpetration of dating violence in late adolescence. Risk factors also varied by adolescents' race and sex. Finally, perceived neighborhood collective efficacy buffered the relationship between early academic difficulties and later perpetration of dating violence for Hispanic males. These results imply that multiple systems should be addressed in dating violence prevention programs. Abstract published by arrangement with Springer.