The social construction of violence in a group of young people of both sexes in a public middle school

In this article we will address some factors that promote violence in schools from the youth viewpoint. We present an overview of what young people understand about violence; in which way its take places; in what forms they express it; and what aspects they consider more important than others. At the same time, it compares the social construction of violence on both, boys and girls, and describe how violence is interpreted from the gender perspective. The latter means that assumption of violent behavior varies with the gender of the person describing it. In other words, any project that pretends to promote schools free of violence need to deal with gender issues. Finally, I will share a few general considerations about what we may call social construction of violence in young people and its implications for a violence prevention project.     

Attitudes about Violence and Involvement in Peer Violence among Youth: Findings from a High-Risk Community

Peer violence perpetration and victimization are the most common types of violence among youth. This study determined the associations among violent attitudes toward peers, involvement in peer violence perpetration, and experience with peer violence victimization among boys and girls in a high-risk, urban community. Analyses were based on data from the 2004 Youth Violence Survey, which was administered to over 80% of public school students in grades 7, 9, 11, and 12 (N = 4,131) in a disadvantaged, urban, school district in the USA. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to test the associations between attitudes in support of violence and involvement in violent behaviors. Results show that among youth, attitudes supporting boys hitting boys significantly increased the odds of peer violence perpetration after controlling for potential confounders (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.35; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.07, 1.72). However, stratified analyses for boys and girls show that attitudes supporting boys hitting boys increased the odds of peer violence perpetration for girls only after controlling for potential confounders (AOR, 1.49; 95% CI = 1.05, 2.13). The findings demonstrate that there are important differences between boys and girls in terms of their associations with violent attitudes and involvement in actual violent behaviors. However, additional research is needed to determine how attitude modifications can be incorporated into youth violence prevention programs.     

Doing health, doing gender: teenagers, diabetes and asthma

Although most research linking health disadvantage with gender has focused on women, recent work indicates that hegemonic masculinities can also place the health of men at risk. The importance of comparing the experiences of women and men has been emphasised and this paper focuses on the ways in which the social constructions of femininities and masculinities affect how teenagers live with asthma or diabetes. The majority of girls incorporated these conditions and the associated treatment regimens into their social and personal identities, showing a greater adaptability to living with asthma or diabetes. However, this could have detrimental effects in terms of control, as girls sometimes lowered expectations for themselves. In addition, two aspects of the treatment regimens, diet and exercise, were found to disadvantage girls and advantage boys, because of contemporary meanings of femininities and masculinities. The social construction of femininities meant that these conditions were not seen as the threat that they were by the majority of boys interviewed, who made every effort to keep both conditions outside their personal and social identities by passing. The majority of boys maintained a 'valued' identity by feeling in control of their body and their condition. However, for the small minority of boys who were no longer able to pass the impact of chronic illness led to a 'disparaged' identity. The interaction of gender and health is seen as a complex two-way process, with aspects of contemporary femininities and masculinities impacting on the management of these conditions, and aspects of these conditions impacting in gendered ways upon the constructions of gender.     

A peer education program to promote the use of conflict resolution skills among at-risk school age males.

Violence is devastating the lives of children in America''s major cities. The problem of violence is particularly acute among disadvantaged young urban males. This program focuses on violence prevention in school-age boys using creative educational techniques and community partnership. The goal of this school-based program is to decrease the incidence of violent episodes in the school by teaching conflict resolution skills. Conflict resolution skills are taught in the health education component of the school health program. Skills are taught using a peer education model supervised by the school health nurse and planned in partnership with a Violence Prevention Advisory Board. Peer education teams consisting of fifth and sixth grade boys are trained and serve as peer educators for the boys in grades K-4. The violence prevention peer education program stresses primary prevention and targets at-risk school age males. The proposal uses a model that promotes the development of student leadership skills and self esteem. The proposal suggests ways to promote school and community involvement using an advisory board made up of student, community, and school leaders. The peer education program is cost effective and demonstrates how existing resources can be used creatively within the school setting.     

Urban youth violence: Do definitions and reasons for violence vary by gender?

This study explored how young boys and girls living in low income urban neighborhoods defined and described reasons associated with youth violence. Five focus groups were conducted with 29 youth between the ages of 8 and 12 recruited from four selected study neighborhoods. Participants were asked to describe youth violence. Appropriate probes were used to explore similarities and differences by gender with regard to the reasons for violence. Definitions of youth violence were consistent across participants and included verbal threats, physical contact, and often the use of a weapon. Several common reasons for violence were found among both boys and girls; romantic relationships, respect, idle time, gangs.cliques, and witnessing violence. Reasons for violence unique to boys include fighting about issues related to money and illicit drugs. Gossip was identified as a reason specific to why girls engage in violence. Youth violence was perceived as a common problem impacting the lives of the boys and girls in this study. Although many of the reasons identified for violence are similar among boys and girls, select gender differences do exist. Future research and prevention efforts to address youth violence should engage young people in efforts to understand and address this important public health topic.     

OUR BODIES ARE MADE OF PIZZA--FOOD AND EMBODIMENT AMONG CHILDREN IN KENTUCKY

The aims of this qualitative article are to describe children's food-related practices and meanings and to explore how food-related practices embody meanings of food, age, and gender in children's everyday lives. Relationships between practices and meanings are examined from an embodiment perspective. The data were collected from one class of fourth-grade children (N = 24) in central Kentucky by a mix of ethnographic research methods. The participating children's food-related practices and meanings reflected a categorization into healthy and "junk" food, likes and dislikes, meals and snacks, children and adults, and masculine and feminine. The children's food discourse focused on preferences and they based their eating on a three meal pattern. Both the girls and boys strongly identified with "junk" food and were not interested in eating in a healthy manner. Results suggest that the children used foods to differentiate adults from children, but they had not completely embodied gendered food meanings.     

Blood,lust and love

This paper interrogates the construction of gender relations in the Twilight books and films, vis-à-vis issues of implicit and overt gender violence. A combination of ideological analysis, semiology, and feminist critique is used to examine the verbal and visual codes at work in these texts. Five dominant themes emerge: (1) the representation of violence as an inherent characteristic of masculinity; (2) the portrayal of male violence as a justifiable by-product of heterosexual relationships; (3) the definition of masculinity in terms of a dualism wherein “good” boys repudiate their own “instinctive” predilection for violence and “bad” boys allow it to go unchecked; (4) the continual imperilment of girls in situations from which they are rescued by boys; and (5) the assertion of control by boys over girls' crucial life decisions. I conclude that Twilight works ideologically and visually to coax audiences to expect boys to be violent and girls to be compliant in regard to violence in the context of heterosexual relationships.     

Violence perpetration across peer and partner relationships: co-occurrence and longitudinal patterns among adolescents.

PURPOSE: To examine the co-occurrence and consistency over time of peer violence, sexual aggression, and dating violence among European American and Mexican-American adolescent boys and girls. METHODS: One-hundred-twelve girls and 135 boys who were either European American or Mexican-American were recruited from a large health maintenance organization. They were interviewed by telephone at baseline (at ages 16 to 20 years) and at one-year follow-up. Variable-centered and person-centered analyses examined the co-occurrence of violent behavior across domains, and whether adolescents who engaged in violent behavior at baseline also engaged in violent behavior during the following year. RESULTS: Results indicated that adolescent boys who engaged in violence in one domain were more likely to engage in violence in other domains during the same time period. Results for girls were less consistent. For boys but not girls, perpetration of either sexual aggression or peer violence was a significant predictor of the same behavior at follow-up. Person-centered analyses indicated that boys who perpetrated both peer violence and sexual aggression at baseline were most likely to perpetrate later violence. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that adolescent boys who engage in peer violence are also at risk for perpetrating sexual aggression or dating violence. Boys who perpetrate peer violence and sexual aggression are at high risk for later violence. Interventions with a dual focus on peer and partner violence may be valuable.     

A survey of rate of victimization and attitudes towards physical violence among school-aged children in Turkey

Background Violence of any type is a serious issue in the lives of many children from all racial, cultural and economic backgrounds, and is a topic of enormous societal concern in any society. The purpose of this study was to examine the rate of exposure to violence as victims, and attitudes towards physical violence among school‐aged children in eastern Turkey. Methods All the basic education schools in Elazig, a typical eastern Anatolian city, were included. A total of 3725 fifth and sixth graders were asked to answer survey questions about the rate of physical violence exposure in their everyday lives and whether they thought the violence was an ‘acceptable’ behaviour. Results The mean age of participants was 12.8 years with 46.8% boys and 53.2% girls, and their socio‐economic status ranged from low‐income to upper middle class. Seventy‐four per cent of school‐aged children reported exposure to at least one case of physical violence in their lives, and 43.4% reported experiencing physical violence within previous 12 months. Higher rates of exposure to physical violence were reported by boys than girls (P = 0.0001). Of the victims, 33.8% regarded physical violence as an acceptable or inevitable way of solution or responding to life events. Conclusions Results from the self‐report of the receiving end of violent behaviours indicate that physical violent victimization is at an alarmingly high rate among children of eastern Turkey, and a significant per cent of these victims approves violence as a way of solution.     

Local narratives of sexual and other violence against children and young people in Zanzibar

Understandings of violence, and especially sexual violence against children, must be situated within the local context. The 2009 Violence against Children Survey in Zanzibar indicated that 6% of girls and 9% of boys reported having experienced sexual violence before the age of 18 years. This paper reports on an in-depth qualitative study conducted in Zanzibar to provide further insights to these findings by examining the circumstances for sexual and other violence against children in Zanzibar. Twenty-four in-depth interviews with young people and 18 focus-group discussions with young people and adults were conducted in rural and urban Zanzibar. A further 8 interviews were conducted with parents and key stakeholders in government and NGO offices that provide services for children. The findings revealed that religious and cultural practices, which form the foundation of Swahili culture in Zanzibar, provide a moral frame for childhood development, but structural factors make children vulnerable to sexual violence. Both boys and girls are vulnerable to sexual violence in the home, neighbourhood, at school and, in particular, at madrasa or Qur’anic schools. As religion and culture are strong influences on childhood, preventing sexual violence at madrasa schools would strengthen the positive aspects of religious teachings for ensuring a safe childhood.     

Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women: theorising femininities and their connections to HIV risk practices

In South Africa, both HIV and gender-based violence are highly prevalent. Gender inequalities give men considerable relational power over young women, particularly in circumstances of poverty and where sex is materially rewarded. Young women are often described as victims of men, but this inadequately explains women's observed sexual agency. This paper takes a different approach. We use qualitative interviews and ethnographic observation among 16 young women from the rural Eastern Cape to explore ways young women construct their femininities and exercise agency. The data were collected as part of an evaluation of Stepping Stones, which is a participatory behavioural intervention for HIV prevention that seeks to be gender transformative. Agency was most notable in particular stages of the dating 'game', especially relationship initiation. Constructions of desirable men differed but generally reflected a wish to avoid violence, and a search for mutual respect, sexual pleasure, romance, modernity, status and money. Agency was constrained once relationships were consented to, as men expected to control their partners, using violent and non-violent methods. Women knew this and many accepted this treatment, although often expressing ambivalence. Many of the women expressed highly acquiescent femininities, with power surrendered to men, as a 'choice' that made their lives in cultural terms more meaningful. In marked contrast to this was a 'modern' femininity, centred around a desire to be 'free'. A visible third position, notably emerging after the Stepping Stones intervention, rested not on a feminist challenge to patriarchy, but on an accommodation with men's power whilst seeking to negotiate greater respect and non-violence within relations with men. These multiple and dynamic femininities open up possibilities for change. They demonstrate the need to engage with women, both as victims of patriarchy and active supporters of the gender order. The multiplicity of women's hopes and desires and circumstances of emotional and relational fulfillment provides potential for interventions with women that acknowledge existing gender inequalities, validate women's agency, reduce violence and prevent HIV.     

‘Nobody teases good girls’: A qualitative study on perceptions of sexual harassment among young men in a slum of Mumbai

Young adulthood is a key period in which gender norms are solidified. As a result, young women are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. In Delhi, over 90% of women have ever experienced sexual violence in public spaces. Sexual harassment of girls and women in public spaces is commonly named ‘eve teasing’ in India. Experience of sexual harassment in public spaces has been found to be associated with restricted mobility, interrupted education, and early age at marriage. Little is known about men’s perspectives on eve teasing and how they believe it affects women and girls. This study fills that gap through qualitative research to explore the attitudes and perceptions of adolescent boys and young men on this topic. Ten focus group discussions were conducted in two slum communities in Mumbai. Coding and thematic analysis were performed. We identified themes of acceptance of harassment, weak sanctions, traditional gender norms supportive of harassment, and ideologies of male sexual entitlement. Many of the perceived risk and protective factors for sexual harassment in public spaces are operationalised at the community level. Community mobilisation is necessary in designing interventions focused on the primary and secondary prevention of sexual harassment.     

Effectiveness of teacher modeling to encourage food acceptance in preschool children

Although Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1997) suggests that teacher modeling would be one of the most effective methods to encourage food acceptance by preschool children, opinions of experienced teachers have not yet been sampled, teacher modeling has rarely been examined experimentally, and it has produced inconsistent results. The present study considers opinions of teachers and conditions under which teacher modeling is effective. Study 1 was a questionnaire in which preschool teachers (N=58) were found to rate modeling as the most effective of five teacher actions to encourage children's food acceptance. Study 2 and Study 3 were quasi-experiments that found silent teacher modeling ineffective to encourage either familiar food acceptance (N=34; 18 boys, 16 girls) or new food acceptance (N=23; 13 boys, 10 girls). Children's new food acceptance was greatest in the first meal and then rapidly dropped, suggesting a "novelty response" rather than the expected neophobia. No gender differences were found in response to silent teacher modeling. Study 4 was a repeated-measures quasi-experiment that found enthusiastic teacher modeling ("Mmm! I love mangos!") could maintain new food acceptance across five meals, again with no gender differences in response to teacher modeling (N=26; 12 boys, 14 girls). Study 5 found that with the addition of a competing peer model, however, even enthusiastic teacher modeling was no longer effective to encourage new food acceptance and gender differences appeared, with girls more responsive to the peer model (N=14; 6 boys, 8 girls). Thus, to encourage children's new food acceptance, present results suggest that teachers provide enthusiastic modeling rather than silent modeling, apply such enthusiastic modeling during the first five meals before children's "novelty response" to new foods drops, and avoid placing competing peer models at the same table with picky eaters, especially girls.     

What girls need: recommendations for preventing violence among urban girls in the US

The last decade saw increases in arrests of girls for violent behavior and a corresponding concern that girls' involvement in violence was increasing in the USA. However, there are few empirical studies of the dynamics of violence by girls, leaving providers of violence prevention programs and policy-makers without evidence on which to base gender-appropriate prevention strategies. To address this gap, qualitative interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of 61 urban girls aged 11-17. Findings were compared with quantitative interviews from the prospective cohort of 961 girls from whom these respondents were drawn, from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Mixed-method techniques were employed. Qualitative data were analyzed for girls' recommendations for preventing involvement in violence. Data from the larger cohort were used to test these recommendations quantitatively. Due to study design, in the qualitative sample, 36 girls (64%) were involved in recent violence, most often with or against other girls. Pro-social behavior was common among both violent and nonviolent girls. In the overall cohort sample, 24.9% of girls reported violent perpetration and 97% reported pro-social activities. Eight themes regarding staying safe and preventing violence emerged from the qualitative interviews: girls stayed safe by staying home, avoiding dangerous people, staying busy with after-school activities, remaining calm when confronted, using escorts, and fighting back if attacked. Girls' protective influences included: empathic parental involvement, positive relationships with peers and older youth, and involvement in safe and constructive activities. These findings emphasize that safety in community, school, and family settings is critical for girls in avoiding violence and other risky behaviors. Violence prevention programs should focus on enhancing girls' relationships with mothers, older girls, and friends their age.     

Boys' and young men's perspectives on violence in Northern Tanzania

The challenge of violence for youth in low-income countries includes a range of experiences from witnessing, to experiencing, to participating in violence. Although boys and young men are often the perpetrators of such violence, they may also be its victims. Yet little evidence exists from the voiced experiences of boys themselves on perceptions and interpretations of the violence around them. Given the numerous negative health implications of violence for boys, for the girls and other boys with whom they interact, and for the health of their future partners and families, we conducted an in-depth study in rural and urban Tanzania with adolescent boys on the masculinity norms shaping their transitions through puberty that might be contributing to high-risk behaviours, including engagement in violence. The findings identified underlying societal gendered norms influencing the enactment of violence, and recommendations from the boys on how to diminish the violence around them. Additional research is needed with boys on the social norms and structural factors influencing their engagement in violence.     

“AIDS is rape!” gender and sexuality in children's responses to HIV and AIDS

This paper examines young African school children's understanding of HIV and AIDS. Based on focus group interviews with children aged 7–8 in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, it explores the ways in which gender and sexuality feature in their responses to the disease. Data were collected between 2003 and 2004 through 26 focus groups involving 55 boys and 64 girls. The paper argues that younger children are active agents in giving meaning to the disease. Their agency is negotiated within complex social processes involving sexual violence, highly unequal gender/age inequalities, but also sexual expression. Those expressions are subsumed however under a regime of violence and fear catapulting men, albeit with contestation, as chief vectors in the spread of the disease and a source of girls' anxieties. Children's responses to the disease are the effects of material, symbolic and discursive forces effectively constraining the opportunities available to them and creating patterns of vulnerability especially for young girls. Interventions aimed at scaling up efforts to address young children responses to the disease must be situated in parallel efforts to end poverty, sexual violence and pervasive gender inequalities in order to foster more comprehensively the exercise of young children's agency.     

Early predictors of adolescent violence

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to identify early predictors of adolescent violence and to assess whether they vary by sex and across different types and levels of violence. METHODS: Data from a 5-year longitudinal self-report survey of more than 4300 high school seniors and dropouts from California and Oregon were used to regress measures of relational, predatory, and overall violence on predictors measured 5 years earlier. RESULTS: Deviant behavior in grade 7, poor grades, and weak bonds with middle school predicted violent behavior 5 years later. Attending a middle school with comparatively high levels of cigarette and marijuana use was also linked with subsequent violence. Early drug use and peer drug use predicted increased levels of predatory violence but not its simple occurrence. Girls with low self-esteem during early adolescence were more likely to hit others later on; boys who attended multiple elementary schools were also more likely to engage in relational violence. CONCLUSIONS: Violence prevention programs for younger adolescents should include efforts to prevent or reduce troublesome behavior in school and poor academic performance. Adolescent girls may also profit from efforts to raise self-esteem; adolescent boys may need extra training in resisting influences that encourage deviant behavior. Programs aimed at preventing drug use may yield an added violence-reduction bonus.     

Identifying socio-demographic and socioeconomic determinants of health inequalities in a diverse London community: the South East London Community Health (SELCoH) study

Background

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global public health and human rights concern. Despite a growing body of research into risk factors for IPV, methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. We used data from ten countries included in the WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence to identify factors that are consistently associated with abuse across sites, in order to inform the design of IPV prevention programs.

Methods

Standardised population-based household surveys were done between 2000 and 2003. One woman aged 15-49 years was randomly selected from each sampled household. Those who had ever had a male partner were asked about their experiences of physically and sexually violent acts. We performed multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of physical and/or sexual partner violence within the past 12 months.

Results

Despite wide variations in the prevalence of IPV, many factors affected IPV risk similarly across sites. Secondary education, high SES, and formal marriage offered protection, while alcohol abuse, cohabitation, young age, attitudes supportive of wife beating, having outside sexual partners, experiencing childhood abuse, growing up with domestic violence, and experiencing or perpetrating other forms of violence in adulthood, increased the risk of IPV. The strength of the association was greatest when both the woman and her partner had the risk factor.

Conclusions

IPV prevention programs should increase focus on transforming gender norms and attitudes, addressing childhood abuse, and reducing harmful drinking. Development initiatives to improve access to education for girls and boys may also have an important role in violence prevention.     

Profiles of violent youth: substance use and other concurrent problems.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the prevalence of various violent behaviors among high school-age adolescents, the co-occurrence of teenage violence with other public health problems, and gender differences in violence. METHODS: Longitudinal data for more than 4500 high school seniors and dropouts from California and Oregon were used to develop weighted estimates of the prevalence of violent behavior and its co-occurrence with other emotional and behavioral problems. RESULTS: More than half the sample had engaged in violence during the last year, and one in four had committed predatory violence. Boys were more likely than girls to engage in most types of violence, but both were equally prone to violence within the family. Violent youth were more likely than their peers to have poor mental health, use drugs, drop out of school, and be delinquent. Violent boys were more likely than violent girls to commit nonviolent felonies and sell drugs, but less likely to have poor mental health or become a parent. Prevalence estimates for violence co-occurring with three or more other problems ranged from 4% to 21%. CONCLUSIONS: Teenage violence typically coexists with additional emotional and behavioral problems. Programs must consider the broader public health context in which violence occurs.