Non-physical Forms Research Articles

Towards a humane learner punishment: A Lesotho secondary schools' teachers perspective

This study examined teachers’ interpretation of the Lesotho Education Act of 2010’s phrase “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” and its impact on how learners are disciplined. For some researchers, punishment in schools is associated with corporal punishment. For this reason, researchers often focus on the issue of abolishing corporal punishment, thereby overlooking other non-physical forms of punishment despite them being equally agonising. This study departed from the interpretivist paradigm and adopted a qualitative approach. An open-ended qualitative research questionnaire was used to generate data. This was followed up with focus group interviews conducted with the teachers in some selected Lesotho secondary schools. The findings indicate that teachers interpret the above phrase as a mere referring to the abolishment of corporal punishment. Hence teachers still use other forms of cruel, degrading and inhumane punishments such as insulting and ridiculing the learners, despite the legislation protecting children against abuse. These forms of teacher behaviour not only constitute learner abuse, but also compromise the professional ethics by which teachers ought to abide. The recommendation made by the study is that teachers should be mindful of the teaching professional ethics taught to them during their pre-service training. In addition, Lesotho’s Ministry of Education and Training, in collaboration with other stakeholders, should train teachers on children’s rights and how to safeguard such rights in the school setting.

Prevalence of Parental Violence Toward Teachers: A Meta-Analysis.

A growing literature on parental violence toward teachers has examined the prevalence of these incidents, yet there is considerable variation across studies. There is a need for a systematic and comprehensive review to assess the extent of parent-perpetrated violence toward teachers. Using a meta-analytic approach, we examined the prevalence of violence directed against teachers by parents and how these rates vary by reporting timeframe and type of violence. We identified 5,340 articles through our initial screening process, and our final analysis included 8 studies that met criteria for this meta-analysis. Our findings show that teachers are more likely to experience non-physical forms of violence as compared to physical violence and that rates are lower as the severity and intrusiveness of the violent act increases. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Identification of intimate partner violence from free text descriptions in social media

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem that adversely affects the well-being of victims. IPV is often under-reported and non-physical forms of violence may not be recognized as IPV, even by victims. With the increasing popularity of social media and due to the anonymity provided by some of these platforms, people feel comfortable sharing descriptions of their relationship problems in social media. The content generated in these platforms can be useful in identifying IPV and characterizing the prevalence, causes, consequences, and correlates of IPV in broad populations. However, these descriptions are in the form of free text and no corpus of labeled data is available to perform large-scale computational and statistical analyses. Here, we use data from established questionnaires that are used to collect self-report data on IPV to train machine learning models to predict IPV from free text. Using Universal Sentence Encoder (USE) along with multiple machine learning algorithms (random forest, SVM, logistic regression, Naïve Bayes), we develop DetectIPV, a tool for detecting IPV in free text. Using DetectIPV, we comprehensively characterize the predictability of different types of violence (physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse) from free text. Our results show that a general model that is trained using examples of all violence types can identify IPV from free text with area under the ROC curve (AUROC) 89%. We also train type-specific models and observe that physical abuse can be identified with greatest accuracy (AUROC 98%), while sexual abuse can be identified with high precision but relatively low recall. While our results indicate that the prediction of emotional abuse is the most challenging, DetectIPV can identify emotional abuse with AUROC above 80%. These results establish DetectIPV as a tool that can be used to reliably detect IPV in the context of various applications, ranging from flagging social media posts to detecting IPV in large text corpuses for research purposes. DetectIPV is available as a web service at https://www.ipvlab.case.edu/ipvdetect/.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention using a cross-sectoral couple-based intervention: results from a cluster randomised control trial in Ibadan, Nigeria

IntroductionIntimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common form of violence women experience globally. Economic empowerment interventions have been implemented across countries to prevent and address IPV, with mixed results....

Pendidikan Keberagamaan Berbasis Budaya Spiritual Di Kalangan Sai Study Group (SSG)

Education is not only teaching that emphasizes on cognitive aspects, mastery of academic subjects, and not the development of the character of students towards the environmental reality which is religiously pluralistic. Therefore, although many educational institutions teach about the differences and respect for pluralism and comparative religion, it only comes to a cognitive understanding of each religion and does not know how to behave outside the religious discipline. It has big impact on humanitarian crises, not only at a concrete level in the form of physical culture, but also in non-physical forms which related to changes in attitudes, behavior and values ​​of life. The presence of the Sai Study Group Denpasar (SSGD) religious study group gave a new model to the pattern of religious education amidst the polarization of the development of religious study groups in Bali, especially in the formation of intellectual and character building. Religious education at SSGD contains acts of cognition, not just transfer of knowledge, verbalism, and education banking.

Promoting Junior School Students’ Anti-bullying Beliefs with the CATZ Cross-age Teaching Zone Intervention

In tackling the widespread problem of bullying victimisation, researchers have acknowledged the value of focusing on changing bullying-related beliefs and using peer-based interventions. In three studies (N = 419, 237 intervention and 182 controls), we tested the effectiveness of the CATZ cross-age teaching programme by inviting small groups of 11-year-olds to incorporate information supporting positive beliefs (concerning non-physical forms of bullying, the value of disclosing being bullied to adults, and helping victims) into a lesson they devised for themselves and to deliver that to small groups of 9-year-olds. Specifically, we examined if the intervention would promote that (i) non-physical forms of bullying are unacceptable (study 1), (ii) disclosing bullying to adults and getting the right kind of help have value and importance (study 2), and (iii) victims can be assisted in safe ways (study 3). Self-reports of nine specific aspects of these beliefs were collected from CATZ tutors and age-matched controls prior to and following the intervention, and at five-week follow-up in one study, using both open and closed questions. Results indicated significant positive effects of CATZ on all nine outcome variables, with mostly medium and high effect sizes. These findings support the use of CATZ to foster positive anti-bullying beliefs, and issues related to its wider uptake are discussed.

Nonviolent youth activism and symbolic violence: Some problems in Bourdieu’s notion of victim complicity

The coupling of victim complicity with violence is intuitively objectionable, yet it is an underexamined aspect of Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic violence’. Within sociology, the nature of violence continues to be debated and refined with contested boundaries particularly concerning non-physical forms of violence. Symbolic violence offers an avenue to investigate this realm; however, it has been both employed and rejected without close examination of the issue of complicity. Moreover, the varying interpretations of Bourdieu’s use of the term ‘violence’ present problems for sustaining sociological distinctions between power and violence. This article examines these issues through the experiences of youth activists employing Nonviolent Direct Action with a focus on their reflexive self-awareness of participation in systems of violence. The author argues that complicity in symbolic violence presents epistemological and ontological problems for the sociology of violence that can be avoided by adopting viable alternative interpretations that emphasise the subject’s reflexivity and the systemic origins of violence.

Psychological Reactions to Different Types of Gender-Based Violence in Women Survivors of Violence in the Context of a Developing Country.

Literature on the psychological effects on women survivors of violence (WSV) suggests there may be a relationship between the specific type of gender-based violence and patterns in the development of mental health consequences. Understanding these relationships would support early targeted (or early specialist) intervention. Since violence against women in families is a common social health problem in developing countries, the study attempted to explore the abuse specific reaction patterns within such a context. A total of 600 WSV (mean age = 26.86, SD = 7.47) were recruited from different social service organizations working for WSV in Bangladesh. To identify the type of gender-based violence (i.e., physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, and economic violence) experienced and psychiatric sequelae (i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse) in WSV, multiple reliable and valid measures were used. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that amongst the various different types of violence, only psychological, sexual, and economic violence have a significant independent predictive ability on PTSD, anxiety, and depression in the Bangladeshi WSV. Violence related factors such as witnessing violence in childhood among parents and history of childhood abuse had the unique predictive ability on suicidal ideation and substance abuse, respectively. Our result suggested that accepting physical and emotional abuse at any stage of life is very common for Bangladeshi women. This study suggested that non-physical forms of violence have the most significant independent predictive ability in the development of psychiatric symptoms. It is suggested that to develop appropriate support services for WSV within this socio-cultural context, further research is required which focuses on the psychological impact of non-physical forms of violence.

Weak Criminalization of Domestic Violence in China: Two Key Weaknesses

This article deals with the difficulties that arise from the limited criminalization of domestic violence, in both substantive and procedural terms, by the criminal justice system. Thus, substantive law is weak in at least four respects: the law does not effectively define and punish domestic violence, enforcement provisions in the law are weak and ambiguous, the overall objectives of the substantive law are inconsistent, and the law does not give sufficient guidance to law enforcement agencies in their handling of incidents of domestic violence. In terms of the processes of criminal justice, the frailties are perhaps even more serious. Thus, there is a failure by the police in their law enforcement work to give sufficient weight to domestic violence cases—the police (public security personnel) often consider such cases to be ‘merely’ family matters. A second key weakness is that the provisions of Chinese criminal procedure provide only a very limited deterrence regime regarding domestic violence, as evidenced in the low prosecution rate, the fact that the overwhelming majority of prosecutions and convictions relate to physical forms of domestic violence (so that non-physical forms of domestic violence are basically in practice ignored in the criminal justice system), a less robust approach to police intervention as an instrument of deterrence in less developed areas, and inconsistent conviction and sentencing. Also, the police are not incentivised sufficiently to implement and to enforce the protection order system, perhaps most markedly so in the more underdeveloped areas of China. To a significant extent, this weakness reflects a performance appraisal system that prioritises detection work in what are regarded as more genuinely serious criminal cases. Important too in explaining the problem of limited police impact is the practice of pre-trial cooperation between the police, the procuracy and the courts. Here, the police definition of the situation prevails, with the agencies inclined to allow the police characterisation to prevail. So, in effect, law enforcement agencies combine to restrict access to gender justice.

Child disciplinary practices, abuse, and neglect: Findings from a formative study in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe

BackgroundZimbabwe has a high prevalence of children who have experienced abuse according to national data. ObjectiveTo understand how parents/caregivers and children describe child discipline, abuse, and neglect and what factors influence each, in order to inform the adaptation of a positive parenting/caregiving intervention in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. ParticipantsA total of eight focus groups were conducted, four with parents/caregivers (N = 40) and four with their children ages 10–14 (N = 40), separately, between June-July 2016. SettingChitungwiza, Zimbabwe. MethodsWe used an inductive and deductive analytic approach to analyze focus group transcripts, using MAXQDA 12. ResultsThere were similar themes across focus groups of children and parents/caregivers. Findings suggest that parents/caregivers and children may be somewhat aware of the differences between discipline and abuse, but they are not completely clear about what the definitions of discipline and abuse are, and where the boundaries between discipline and abuse lie. The use of both non-physical and physical forms of discipline were described in the community, however physical discipline was a reoccurring theme in the focus groups of both parents/caregivers and their children. There were several factors that influenced discipline and/or abuse of children in the community, including the child's gender and theseverity of the child's misbehavior/actions. Parents/caregivers shared that orphan/non-biological children were particularly vulnerable to forms of abuse and neglect committed by parents/caregivers in the community, for example, withholding food and overworking a child. ConclusionsUnderstanding the differences between discipline, abuse and neglect, as well as factors that influence occurrences of abuse/neglect and/or severity of abuse/neglect, need to be considered when assessing the vulnerability of children, in order to develop and refine parenting/caregiving interventions for the Zimbabwean context.

‘A leap forward’? Critiquing the criminalisation of domestic abuse in Northern Ireland

Following in the footsteps of other jurisdictions across the UK and Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland is currently taking steps to criminalise ‘domestic abuse’. The proposed offence is strongly influenced by research into ‘coercive control’, a framing popularised by Evan Stark that captures both physical and nonphysical forms of abuse. In this article, I introduce the Northern Ireland Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill, before analysing its likely impacts on victim-survivors. To do so, I draw from three key critiques of criminalisation that have emerged from both reformist and anti-carceral feminist scholarship: first, that implementation will pose practical challenges; second, that criminalisation will result in a range of unintended harms; and, third, that criminalisation alone is an ineffective response to domestic abuse. In light of these critiques, I argue for a more holistic response, which considers the underlying social structures and dynamics that contextualise the phenomenon of domestic abuse.

Global perspectives on physical and nonphysical discipline: A Bayesian multilevel analysis

Background and Objective: Sixty countries worldwide have banned the use of physical punishment, yet little is known about the association of physical and nonphysical forms of child discipline with child development in a global context. The objective of this study is to examine whether physical punishment and nonphysical discipline are associated with child socioemotional functioning in a global sample of families from 62 countries and whether country-level normativeness of physical punishment and nonphysical discipline moderated those associations. Methods: Data for this study are from 215,885 families in the fourth and fifth rounds of the United Nations Children’s Fund Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. Bayesian multilevel logistic models were used to analyze the associations of physical punishment and nonphysical discipline (i.e., taking away privileges and verbal reasoning) with three different outcomes representing children’s socioemotional functioning: getting along well with other children, aggression, and becoming distracted. Results: The use of physical punishment was not associated with getting along with other children, was associated with increased aggression, and was associated with increases in distraction. Taking away privileges was associated with lower levels of getting along with other children, higher levels of aggression, and higher levels of becoming distracted. Verbal reasoning (i.e., explaining why a behavior was wrong) was associated with higher levels of getting along with other children, higher levels of aggression, and higher levels of becoming distracted. Country-level normativeness moderated some of these associations but in general the direction of effects was consistent. Conclusions: Results suggest that eliminating physical punishment would benefit children across the globe and align with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for all children to be free from physical violence. More attention needs to be focused on the associations of nonphysical forms of discipline with child functioning across the globe.

Fiscal Aspects of the Fashion Industry: The Big Four Global Capitals and the Nigerian Equivalent

Fashion as a process in which individuals, institution or society interpret underlying social values using available technology to create specific physical or non-physical forms. Globally, the fashion industry is estimated at about $1.2 trillion. A fashion capital is such society with lots of impact on the fashion industry. There are four main global fashion capitals: New York, Paris, Milan and London. New York has the largest retail sales in the United States with more than $15 billion annual sales. Paris arguably remains the fashion capital of the world since it houses the two global largest luxury and fashion groups, kering and Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE. The fashion industry in Milan has about 6000 active enterprises catering for about 37,500 employees. The value chain generated by it accounts for one fifth of the entire Milanese wealth and fashion-related manufacturing accounted for 15% of the whole manufacturing in Milan in 2013. The fashion industry in the UK was worth approximately ￡21 billion in 2012. In Nigeria however, the fashion industry is still in infancy and without proper market structures. Currently, the aggregate of productions and retails is worth about N 2 Trillion. Entrants into the industry are overcoming the lack of structure by creating their own business formation within the corporate context of the Nigerian trade scene. Consequently, there was a 29% increase in the contribution of textile, apparel and footwear production to the GDP in Q1 2014 over Q1 2013. This report concluded the big four fashion capitals which have had longer historical presence and enjoy stable structures for their fashion industries to thrive. The Nigerian fashion industry however is emerging with huge prospects for growth especially in its luxury subsection. Nigeria needs to pay attention to provision of retail structures and includes its fashion industry in government policy legislation for sustained growth and development in her fashion industry.

‘A Leap Forward’? Critiquing the Criminalization of Domestic Abuse in Northern Ireland

Following in the footsteps of other jurisdictions across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland is currently taking steps to criminalise ‘domestic abuse’. The proposed offence is strongly influenced by research into ‘coercive control’ a framing popularised by Evan Stark that captures both physical and non-physical forms of abuse. In this article, I introduce the Northern Ireland Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill, before analysing its likely impacts on victim-survivors. To do so, I draw from three key critiques of criminalisation that have emerged from both reformist and anti-carceral feminist scholarship. First, that implementation will pose practical challenges; second, that criminalisation will result in a range of unintended harms; and third, that criminalisation alone is an ineffective response to domestic abuse. In light of these critiques, I argue for a more holistic response, which considers the underlying social structures and dynamics that contextualise the phenomenon of domestic abuse.

‘A leap forward’? Critiquing the criminalisation of domestic abuse in Northern Ireland

Following in the footsteps of other jurisdictions across the UK and Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland is currently taking steps to criminalise ‘domestic abuse’. The proposed offence is strongly influenced by research into ‘coercive control’, a framing popularised by Evan Stark that captures both physical and nonphysical forms of abuse. In this article, I introduce the Northern Ireland Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill, before analysing its likely impacts on victim-survivors. To do so, I draw from three key critiques of criminalisation that have emerged from both reformist and anti-carceral feminist scholarship: first, that implementation will pose practical challenges; second, that criminalisation will result in a range of unintended harms; and, third, that criminalisation alone is an ineffective response to domestic abuse. In light of these critiques, I argue for a more holistic response, which considers the underlying social structures and dynamics that contextualise the phenomenon of domestic abuse.

The Forgotten Survivor: The Articulated Needs of Survivors of Psychological and Economic Abuse Who Stay

Despite improvements, extant research and praxis has not yet given sufficient attention to nonphysical forms of intimate partner violence, including psychological and economic abuse. Furthermore, i...

The experience of health and welfare workers in identifying and responding to domestic abuse among military personnel in the UK

BackgroundAwareness of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) as a problem among military personnel (serving and veterans) has grown in recent years, and there is a need for research to inform improvements in the identification of and response to DVA in this population. This study aimed to explore the experience of health and welfare professionals in identifying and responding to DVA among the UK military population (serving personnel and veterans).MethodsThirty-five semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with health and welfare staff who work with serving UK military personnel and veterans. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsThree superordinate themes were identified: i) patterns of DVA observed by health and welfare workers (perceived gender differences in DVA experiences and role of mental health and alcohol); (ii) barriers to identification of and response to DVA (attitudinal/knowledge-based barriers and practical barriers), and iii) resource issues (training needs and access to services). Participants discussed how factors such as a culture of hypermasculinity, under-reporting of DVA, the perception of DVA as a “private matter” among military personnel, and lack of knowledge and awareness of emotional abuse and coercive controlling behaviour as abuse constitute barriers to identification and management of DVA. Healthcare providers highlighted the need for more integrated working between civilian and military services, to increase access to support and provide effective care to both victims and perpetrators. Furthermore, healthcare and welfare staff reflected on their training needs in the screening and management of DVA to improve practice.ConclusionsThere is a need for increased awareness of DVA, particularly of non-physical forms of abuse, and of male victimisation in the military. Standardised protocols for DVA management and systematic training are required to promote a consistent and appropriate response to DVA. There is a particular training need among healthcare and first-line welfare staff, who are largely relied upon to identify cases of DVA in the military. Employing DVA advocates within military and civilian healthcare settings may be useful in improving DVA awareness, management and access to specialist support.

Under the radar: Everyday sadism predicts both passive-aggressive harms and beneficial actions after accounting for prosocial tendencies

Two studies examined the predictive value of everyday sadism in determining participants' choices to cause frustration to a hypothetical other, controlling for prosocial characteristics (cognitive and affective empathy, helpfulness). In Study 1 (n = 154), forward-stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated direct physical sadism levels predicted participants' assignment of easy and difficult math items after levels of prosocial characteristics were statistically controlled. In Study 2 (n = 110), forward-stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated participants' levels of direct physical sadism predicted the assignment of easy and difficult math items across two math tasks (a replication of study one and a second math task related to the first). Study 2 analyses also revealed both direct verbal and physical sadism predicted the assignment of moderately difficult math items. Additional analyses further suggest direct verbal sadism predicted choosing to frustrate others in a more common, everyday experience. These findings suggest levels of direct physical and verbal sadism are important independent predictors of individuals' decisions to inflict non-physical forms of frustration on others.

Assessment of intimate partner violence abuse ratings by recently abused and never abused women

BackgroundThere are a paucity of directly reported intimate partner violence survivors’ experiences, especially in women of color. This study measures recently/currently abused women’s ratings of varied abuse events compared to ratings from never abused women.MethodsWomen in a single, urban, public hospital emergency department (ED) were screened for intimate partner violence using the Abuse Assessment Screen (AAS). Two groups were identified - women abused within 1 year by an intimate partner or family member and those who screened negative for abuse. Using a two-group longitudinal survey and interview format, women completed visual analog scale ratings (0–100) for each of 20 abuse events/types. For analysis, each abuse type was placed on the 0–100 scale according to its designated rating.ResultsAverage age of participants in the abuse group (n = 30) was 33. Never abused women averaged age 50 (n = 32). The majority of participants were African-American: abused 67% and never abused 94%. Abused women rated name-calling (p < 0.02) and put-downs (p < 0.01) as more severe than never abused women. Other non-physical and physical forms of abuse such as threats, control, burns or forced sex were perceived more similarly between groups.ConclusionsAbused women perceive verbal abuse events differently compared to never abused women.

Nicotine treatment buffers negative behavioral consequences induced by exposure to physical and emotional stress in adolescent male mice.

Early life stress influences adult psychopathology and is associated with an increase in the propensity for drug use/seeking throughout the lifespan. Animal models corroborate that stress exposure exacerbates maladaptive reactivity to stressful stimuli while also shifting the rewarding properties of many drugs of abuse, including nicotine (NIC), a stimulant commonly misused by adolescents. Interestingly, NIC treatment can also normalize some stress-induced behavioral deficits in adult rodents; however, little is known about NIC's therapeutic efficacy following stress experienced during adolescence. The goal of the following experiments was to elucidate NIC's ability to buffer the negative consequences of stress exposure, and to further assess behavioral responsivity while on the drug. Given that stress often occurs in both physical and non-physical forms, we employed the vicarious social defeat stress (VSDS) model which allows for investigation of both physical (PS) and emotional stress (ES) exposure. After 10days, exposure to PS and ES decreased interaction with a social target in the social interaction test (SIT), confirming social avoidance. Groups were further divided and given NIC (0.0 or 160mg/L) in their drinking water. After 1month of NIC consumption, the mice were exposed to the SIT, elevated plus maze (EPM), and the forced swim test (FST), respectively. NIC-treated mice showed a reversal of stress-induced deficits in the EPM and FST. Surprisingly, the mice did not show improvement in the SIT regardless of treatment condition. Together, these data confirm NIC's ability to normalize some stress-induced behavioral deficits; however, NIC's effects on social behavior need further investigation.