Male Parenting Attitudes and Batterer Intervention

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between parenting attitudes and intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and identify factors associated with program completion for a 26-week batterer intervention program (BIP). Method: The study employed a nonequivalent, control-group design (comparing program completers to dropouts) in a secondary analysis of 111 men court ordered to the BIP. Results: Correlational and logistic regression analysis indicated (1) a modest relationship between the parenting attitudes and the IPV perpetration, (2) a significant model for predicting parenting attitudes scores using number of children and racial group, and (3) BIP treatment completion could be successfully predicted by education. Conclusion: These findings reveal characteristics of male batterers, as they relate to parenting attitudes and provide preliminary evidence suggesting that men in treatment for IPV offenses endorse a host of negative parenting attitudes. Implications of these findings were explored and discussed.