Reconceptualizing and Operationalizing Context in Survey Research on Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Survey research in the field of intimate partner violence is notably lacking in its attention to contextual factors. Early measures of intimate partner violence focused on simple counts of behaviors, yet attention to broader contextual factors remains limited. Contextual factors not only shape what behaviors are defined as intimate partner violence but also influence the ways women respond to victimization, the resources available to them, and the environments in which they cope with abuse. This article advances methods for reconceptualizing and operationalizing contextual factors salient to the measurement of intimate partner violence. The analytic focus of the discussion is on five dimensions of the social context: the situational context, the social construction of meaning by the survivor, cultural and historical contexts, and the context of systemic oppression. The authors consider how each dimension matters in the measurement of intimate partner violence and offer recommendations for systematically assessing these contextual factors in future research. Keywords intimate partner violence; contextual factors; survey research; measurementIn the past 30 years, research has documented high levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization among women (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980;Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). Within the field of research on IPV, scholars have used qualitative and quantitative methods to study the epidemiology of IPV and abuse-related fatalities, the pervasive economic and physical and mental health consequences of victimization for women, and the effects of differing policies for the identification and response to IPV and have developed interventions to prevent violence and its sequelae. This body of research has fostered a growing awareness that IPV plays a significant role in social processes as diverse as parent-child attachment, youth delinquency, and HIV risk prevention. For example, studies have demonstrated an association between IPV and HIV risk factors such as engaging in unprotected sex (Gilbert et al., 2000;Maman, Campbell, Sweat, & Gielen, 2000) and having a sexually transmitted illness (ElBassel, Gilbert, Wu, Go, & Hill, 2005;Wu, El-Bassel, Witte, Gilbert, & Chang, 2003). Thus, IPV has been both a focus of research attention in determining prevalence and sequelae and one factor among many in survey research projects studying diverse social phenomena. Although incorporating IPV as a factor in survey research designs represents a step forward in our recognition of the interconnections between IPV and other social processes of interest, problems arise when the conceptualization and measurement of IPV are strictly reduced to the behavioral level (e.g., capturing only whether or not hitting or other violent behaviors occur) without awareness of the contextual factors that are important to assess in research on IPV.A rich body of literature has evolved in the study of IPV that critiques the decontextualized, behaviorally focused measurement of IPV (for a summary of these ar...

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