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This study focuses on the relationship between an individual's dissatisfaction with the level of power they have in their dating relationships, parental violence they experienced during their childhoods, and their dating violence perpetration. A sample of 352 male and 296 female undergraduate college students completed a dating violence survey, including selected subscales from the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) and the Relationship Power Scale. Findings show that relationship power dissatisfaction is associated with the use of violence in dating relationships for both men and women. However, parental violence emerged as an even stronger predictor of dating violence perpetration. Findings also indicate that male perpetration of dating violence is related to mother's violence, whereas female perpetration of dating violence is related to father's violence. The results indicate the importance of including gender in the study of dating violence perpetration.

This study begins to fill the methodological gap in the dating violence literature by using hierarchical linear modeling to: (a) examine whether partners agree on reports of their experiences with violence in their relationship; and (b) identify factors that may explain differences in these reports. Data from the Relationship Dimensions Survey, a survey given to 214 late adolescent dating couples were utilized. Results indicated that there was significant variation in the report of dating violence perpetration and in the gender effect across couples, but not within couples. These differences were explained by individual- and relationship-related characteristics, including physical abuse from a parent during childhood, and for males' perpetration only, whether they drank alcohol. Implications for violence prevention are discussed.

This study applies the family-systems concept of differentiation (the balance of autonomy-granting and connectedness) to another primary system of adolescent development—school. This study assessed the relationships among levels of family and school differentiation to the externalizing and internalizing behaviors, peer group membership, and academic achievement of 693 middle and high school students. High levels of family and school differentiation were correlated with all measures of well-being. Individuals in the low-low matched differentiation group had the lowest academic achievement, whereas individuals in the high-high matched differentiation group had the highest academic achievement. Students in the mismatched group, who had high differentiation with parents, but low differentiation with school, had lower grade point averages, higher school absences, and higher disciplinary actions than those in the mismatched group with high school differentiation and low parent differentiation.

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