Annual of social work, Vol. 18 No. 3, 2011.
Original scientific paper
GENDER DIFFERENCES AND PREDICTORS OF VIOLENCE IN YOUTH RELATIONSHIPS
Dean Ajduković
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Ajana Löw
orcid.org/0000-0001-8231-430X
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Nika Sušac
orcid.org/0000-0002-8257-3472
; Department of social work, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
A sample of 623 third-grade students coming from 14 high-schools from different regions of Croatia was used in order to establish how widespread and frequent occurrences of violence in romantic relationships are and the possibility of its prediction using variables that can be connected with violent behaviour from the theoretical point of view. The average age of the participants was 16.8 years and 55.7% of them were boys. The instrument used includes questions on socio-demographic data and experience of a relationship in the last 6 months, as well as seven questionnaires: Scale of false beliefs about a quality relationship, Scale of importance of rights in a relationship, Scale of (un)willingness to establish limits, Experience of being exposed to violence, Experience of committed violence, Readiness to seek help and Readiness to provide help. It has been determined that girls have more appropriate concepts of what a good relationship is, that it is more
important for them to exercise their rights in a relationship and that they are readier to make limits in a relationship and to ask
or provide help in case of violence. They commit psychical or physical violence more often and experience fewer modes of this
type of violence and violence in general than it was expressed by boys. Sexual violence is least common and gender differences
have not been determined in the frequency of committing and experiencing violence. The contribution of various variables in
explaining frequency of committed and experienced violence has also been analysed. Male gender and false beliefs about a
quality relationship predict greater experience of violence in a relationship, while female gender, poorer school performance,
false beliefs about relationships and the importance of exercising rights in a relationship are significant predictors of committing violence. The explained variance increases significantly when a variable of experienced violence is introduced into the prediction model for committed violence.
Keywords
violence in adolescent relationships; partner violence among adolescents; predicting partner violence; frequency of partner violence
Hrčak ID:
75435
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2011.
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