Comparative Research
Research Goal
The big part of the Love and Respect project was the research. The goal was to map the prevalence of teen dating violence in partner countries and then to compare this data. In most of the partner countries the data wasn’t previously available, therefore it was crucial to recognize that it needed to be accumulated first. Upon obtaining the data we let it guide our knowledge in later activities.
Sample Construction
In each partner country in which we conducted the research (Czech Republic, Austria, Georgia, Spain and Croatia), 1000 respondents, aged 16-26 from different cities participated in the survey. The composition of the sample (gender, education, marital status) replicates the demographic data of this age group in that society due to the random selection of respondents; it is therefore possible to generalize the research outputs and to consider them representative.
Research Realization
Research in the aforementioned partner countries was conducted during the first half of 2018. The method of data collection was the online survey - Computer Aided Website Interviewing. The questions in the survey were developed based on previous research proFem conducted, with some modifications suggested by the other partner countries in the project during the working meetings.
Questionnaire
At the beginning of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked if they were dating someone currently or in the past, or if they had never been in a romantic relationship before. If they answered affirmatively, 42 questions related to specific (abusive or toxic) situations in the relationship followed, where respondents answered whether they had experienced them only once or repeatedly (for example “my partner pushed me or slapped me”). Furthermore, the questionnaire included a question examining whether respondents experienced some of the difficulties as a response to the (violent or toxic) behaviour in the relationship. We also examined whether respondents dealt with the situation (violence or toxic behaviour in the relationship) and how it affected the situation. At the end of the questionnaire there were demographic questions (i.e questions such as the age of respondents, their highest educational attainment, marital status, etc.).
Results
Out of those, who have some experience with dating or with relationship, following percentage of youths have ever experienced some type of physical, psychological and sexual violence in their relationships:
