Gender, Context, and Patterns of Intimate Partner Violence

• In Event: Gender, Context, and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

The transition from adolescence to young adulthood represents an important developmental period when youth experience tremendous changes in their lives and take their place in the adult world. This period is also characterized by high levels of intimate partner violence (IPV). Numerous studies have examined a plethora of individual risk factors, yet fewer studies attend specifically to how the social milieu influences patterns of IPV perpetration and victimization in young adulthood. Men and women, however, do not experience the social world in the same way. Consequently, some contextual factors may differentially influence patterns of IPV among men and women due to differences in exposure. Alternatively, the social context as reflected in the adoption of specific social policies may be perceived as having different implications for men and women. Using data from a nationally representative sample, our study has two aims. First, to investigate how patterns of IPV perpetration and victimization vary across social domains (e.g., normative climate, sociopolitical climate), and second, to assess how such variations may be dependent on gender.

Authors

• Wendi L. Johnson, Oakland University

• Lori Burrington, Oakland University