Immigration-Based Disparities in Adolescent Girls’ Vulnerability to Dating Violence

Abstract

The social context of immigration may offer protection regarding adolescent girls' vulnerability to dating violence, but effects are not uniform across age, sexual experience, or race and ethnicity. Additional research is needed to understand how immigration, social behavior, age, race and ethnicity may interact to produce disparities in vulnerability to gender-based violence.

Immigrants as crime victims: Experiences of personal nonfatal victimization

“…Unfortunately, little is known about the nonfatal personal victimization of immigrants to the US. The published violence studies which have looked at US immigrant experiences of victimization have focused on intimate partner violence [Silverman et al, 2007] and homicides [Sorenson and Shen, 1996;Eschbach et al, 2007]. Cause-specific mortality rates among the foreign born are typically lower than those among the USborn, but homicide mortality is as an exception to this pattern, specifically for men [Sorenson and Shen, 1996;Singh and Hiatt, 2006;Eschbach et al, 2007].…”

Acculturation and Dating Violence Victimization Among Filipino and Samoan Youths

“…Although the participants were ensured of their confidentiality, the interviews were conducted in-person, which may have censored some of the participants' answers or willingness to be forthcoming. Victims of interpersonal violence seldom report their cases to authorities, especially those who feel there may be a sociocultural or linguistic barrier with the entity providing them help (Silverman et al, 2007). This may have underestimated the true prevalence of dating violence victimization in this sample.…”

“…Studies with ethnic minority youths suggest that the process of acculturation may influence dating violence (Sanderson, Coker, Roberts, Tortolero, & Reininger, 2004;Silverman et al, 2007;Yeh, 2003). Acculturation refers to the changes that groups or individuals experience when they are exposed to another culture (Williams & Berry, 1991).…”

Acculturation and Aggression in Latino Adolescents: Modeling Longitudinal Trajectories from the Latino Acculturation and Health Project

“…Researchers have conducted multiethnic studies in Miami [13,28] and Massachusetts [29,30], and Puerto Rican samples have come from New York City [14,15,17]. Researchers in the Southwest, typically Arizona [9,10,20] and California [19,22,31,32], have studied samples of Mexican or Mexican American participants.…”

“…Although most studies used multiple indicators of acculturation, researchers frequently examined these indicators as independent predictors rather than as a unified construct. For instance, some studies augmented language use with other simple measures, such as parental birthplace [36]; immigrant status [29,30]; and immigrant/generation status [34]. In addition, a few studies used unique measures to assess acculturation stress, including acculturation conflicts and discrimination conflicts [13,28,31,32,36].…”