Delving into teen dating violence, gender and health assets in a participatory educational intervention: A mixed methods evaluation

Abstract

Teen dating violence (TDV) is a prevalent public health problem worldwide. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a participatory educational intervention based on the positive youth development (PYD) and gender-transformative approaches to reduce sexism, machista attitudes and increase adolescents’ skills in solving conflicts through different protective health assets. An explanatory sequential mixed methods study was conducted between October 2019 and March 2020. Firstly, a quantitative analysis was carried out to analyze the change after the intervention in sexism, machista attitudes and personal health assets through pre and post on-line questionnaires. Secondly, a qualitative socio-hermeneutical analysis of audiovisual representations, made by participants using a CinemaVoice process, was performed to explore how conflicts among adolescent couples are constructed and resolved. Our findings showed that the combination of the PYD and gender-transformative approaches has beneficial results in the development of health assets to cope with TDV and the decrease of benevolent sexism in general, as well as hostile sexism and machista attitudes in girls after the intervention. Adolescents also showed a work of deconstruction around the myths of romantic love and gender roles that perpetuate different forms of TDV. This study contributes to the TDV prevention field by providing an innovative participatory educational intervention and a novel mixed methods evaluation for a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the intervention. Results of this study can serve to guide future strategies to promote healthy relationships among adolescents.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and the Carlos III Health Institute, FEDER and FSE (Reference PI18/00590 and PI18/00544) with the project “Promotion of Gender Violence Protective Assets Among Adolescents and Pre-adolescents”; and the Spanish Ministry of Universities under the grant received from the Programa Nacional de Formación de Profesorado Universitario to the first author (Reference FPU19/00905)