This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 7-session, bystander-focused, classroom delivered curriculum (i.e., Bringing in the Bystander-High School Curriculum [BITB-HSC]) in reducing rates of interpersonal violence among high school students. High schools (N = 26) were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition. In classrooms in treatment schools, students (n = 1081) completed a baseline survey, participated in the BITB-HSC, and completed an immediate post-test, a short-term post-test (appx. 2 months after intervention) and a long-term post-test (appx. 1 year after intervention). Youth in control schools (n =1322) schools completed surveys at similar time points, but did not participate in the BITB-HSC. Participants were 15.8 years old on average and largely White (85.1%) and heterosexual (84.5%). Students exposed to the BITB-HSC demonstrated significant short-term changes in victim empathy and bystander barriers/facilitators, and long-term changes in rape myths, media literacy, bystander readiness, and knowledge relative

Research has identified interpersonal violence (a broad term that includes stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and physical dating violence) as a major problem among adolescents. Research suggests that there are different patterns, or classes, of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration, but little of this work has focused on adolescents. In the current study, we conducted latent class analysis using a sample of 2,921 adolescent girls and boys in high school from northern New England to assess varying patterns of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration over the past 2 months, specifically stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and dating violence. Four classes of violence victimization and perpetration were identified: (a) No Victimization or Perpetration class ( n = 1,898, 65.0%), (b) Low Victimization and Perpetration class ( n = 343, 11.7%), (c) Harassment Victimization Only class ( n = 560, 19.2%), and (d) High Victimization and Low Perpetration class ( n = 120, 4.1%). Several differences in classes emerged as a function of demographic and behavioral health variables. For example, the High Victimization and Low Perpetration class had the highest proportion of girls and youth with sexual minority status. Furthermore, youth in the High Victimization and Low Perpetration class also had a significantly higher proportion of class members endorsing depressed mood and engagement in binge drinking than the youth in other classes. These findings demonstrate the heterogeneity in patterns of interpersonal violence, which future research should seek to better understand in terms of etiology, outcomes, and best practices for prevention and intervention.

Objective: This article describes the adaptation, development, and psychometric properties of survey instruments to assess outcomes of bystander-focused violence prevention efforts among high school students, including media literacy, rape myths, bystander readiness, bystander barriers and facilitators of bystander action, bystander intentions, perceptions of school personnel helping, perceptions of peer helping, and victim empathy. Method: The study was based on data collected from 3,172 high school students across 25 schools in northern New England. Results: Overall, the measures demonstrated acceptable fit indices in multilevel exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Whereas most measures and subscales had adequate reliability, several measures had less than ideal internal consistency, likely because of the limited number of items. Conclusion: Although additional measurement work is needed, these measures provide researchers and practitioners with foundational tools for basic research and program evaluation.

High school students exposed to sexual assault (SA) are at risk for negative outcomes like depressed mood and high-risk drinking. Although evidence suggests that both social contexts and internalized stigma can affect recovery from SA, no research to date has directly examined the presence of stigma in social contexts such as high schools as a correlate of adjustment after SA. In the current study, the self-reported rape myth acceptance (RMA) of 3080 students from 97 grade cohorts in 25 high schools was used to calculate grade-mean and school-mean RMA, which was entered into multilevel models predicting depressed mood and alcohol use among N = 263 SA survivors within those schools. Two forms of RMA were assessed: rape denial and gendered expectations. Results indicate that higher grade-mean rape denial was associated with higher risk for depressed mood among high school boys and girls exposed to SA, and higher grade-mean traditional gender expectations was associated with higher risk for alcohol use among girls exposed to SA. Survivors’ own RMA and school-level RMA were not significantly associated with their depressed mood or alcohol use. Although causality cannot be concluded, these findings suggest that interventions that reduce stigma in social contexts should be explored further as a strategy to improve well-being among high-school-aged survivors of SA.

Despite a growing number of research studies using experience sampling methodologies, little is known about feasibility of these methodologies to the study of intimate partner violence (IPV). In the current study, we examine (a) participant retention and completeness in a 3-week daily diary study, (b) the discrepancy between daily dairy reports of IPV and retrospective summary reports of IPV, and (c) participant reactions to a daily diary assessment of IPV experiences. Participants were 923 undergraduate students (primarily White, heterosexual, and middle to upper-middle class) at two medium-sized universities in New England and the Midwest who received course credit for completing daily diary surveys for 3 weeks about past 24-hour IPV experiences. At the end of the survey, participants summarized their IPV experiences across the 3-week period and answered questions about their reactions to participating in the research protocol. Of the students who completed the baseline survey, 460 (49.8%) were retained until the last day and 229 (24.8%) completed all 21 days. Participants reported higher incidence and frequency of IPV in the daily diaries compared with the retrospective summary measure. On average, participants reported low levels of negative reactions to research participation (e.g., increased fear of partner) and moderate levels of positive reactions to research participation (e.g., gaining insight). IPV victimization before the study, and IPV perpetration and victimization during the daily diary period, predicted negative reactions to research participation reported at the final assessment, whereas IPV perpetration during the daily diary period predicted positive reactions. Overall, findings suggest that although retention is challenging, daily diaries studies may improve accuracy of IPV reporting, and that participants have few negative responses to daily diary methodologies inquiring about IPV.

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Research repeatedly concludes that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (i.e., sexual minorities) are at increased risk of experiencing abuse in a romantic or sexual relationship. For service providers, a vital but largely unanswered question is how common it is for victims of sexual minority intimate partner violence (SM-IPV) to also have perpetrated IPV, particularly in regard to adolescent relationships. To our knowledge, the present article is only the second in the literature to examine adolescent SM-IPV directionality, and it is the first to compare adolescent SM-IPV directionality and heterosexual IPV (H-IPV) directionality within the same sample. In 25 high schools across three northern New England states, sexual minority ( n = 398) and heterosexual ( n = 2,687) high school-aged adolescents aged 13 years to 19 years (where sexual orientation is defined indirectly via sexual attraction) completed a questionnaire as part of a broader evaluation study of a bystander-focused violence prevention curriculum (we utilized baseline data in this article). Chi-square tests revealed that experiencing victimization was significantly associated with engaging in perpetration for all forms of IPV assessed for both sexual minority and heterosexual youths. The sole exception was threatening IPV, for which a significant association was found among heterosexual but not sexual minority individuals. Bidirectional IPV rates did not differ substantially by sexual attraction: Verbal abuse was most likely to be bidirectional for both sexual attraction groups and all other assessed IPV forms occurring overwhelmingly in unidirectional patterns. Although replication is needed, study results suggest that adolescent IPV is not generally bidirectional. Directions for future research are discussed, including the need for sampling plans that enable further disaggregation by age and sexual orientations.