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Adolescent dating violence.

Article Excerpt
Abstract: This article discusses how a research study will be conducted to detemine whether there is a difference in dating violence between adolescent college students and older college students.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a difference in dating violence between adolescent college students and older college students. One of the authors became interested in this study while living on campus at a historically black university. It appeared that there were a number of individuals within the college community who were involved in dating relationships that included physical violence. There was no formal procedure of how to effectively deal with this problem. The college community and administration seemed unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that the problem even existed. However, adolescent dating violence does exist. Studies have reported that in many cases greater than fifty percent of adolescent dating relationship include violence (Gray & Foshee, 1997; Jezl, Molidor, & Wright, 1995). The current literature does not reveal if there is a difference in dating violence between the adolescent college student and the older college student.

Investigational efforts in the last decade have supported that dating violence exists in significant proportions in our society (Feldman, 1998; Gelles & Redrick, 2000). The concept of dating violence was first examined on college campuses in the 1930s (Makepeace, 1981). Since that time the literature supports the conceptualization that individuals who date have similar characteristics as those who are married. Therefore, dating relationships bring with them developmental adjustments, and problems that are encountered by individuals who are married (Ellis, 1994).

NULL HYPOTHESIS

There is no difference in dating violence experienced between adolescent college students and older college students who date.

DEFINITIONS

Definitions used in this study are as follows:

Adolescent college students--Individuals who are enrolled as students in a two- year or four-year institution of higher learning, who are between the ages of 17 and 20.

Older college students--Individuals who are enrolled as students in a two-year or four-year institution of higher learning, who are between the ages of 21-25.

Dating violence--a pattern of violent acts that are perpetrated on another individual that causes physical or emotional harm in close emotional relationships; which escalate in...

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