Risk and Protective Factors for Adolescent Dating Violence

Abstract

As we saw in Chapter 1, violence and abuse in adolescent romantic relationships is a substantial problem, and is relevant to adolescents as young as 12 years old. Not surprisingly, researchers have paid considerable attention to understanding the factors that increase the likelihood of involvement in adolescent dating violence. Perhaps more surprisingly, however, this field of research has typically approached the role of victim and perpetrator separately rather than in unison, despite the evidence presented that these roles tend to co-occur. Moreover, the examination of factors that decrease the likelihood of ADV in the context of risk is considerably less well evolved. By understanding both risk and protective factors, practitioners will be better placed to understand and assess risk (see Chapter 4) and to develop evidence-based primary and secondary interventions (see Chapter 5). Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to provide a critical examination of the most commonly identified risk and protective factors for involvement in adolescent dating violence. This chapter provides a variable-oriented examination of the literature, within which the relevance of each variable to the roles of perpetrator and victim will be reviewed. Only studies that have researched populations aged between 10 and 18 are included here, in order to ensure that the focus is on adolescence as defined in Chapter 1.