Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Among Young People—a Qualitative Study Examining the Role of Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Abstract

Comprehensive sexuality education may help prevent intimate partner violence, but few evaluations of sexuality education courses have measured this. Here we explore how such a course that encourages critical reflection about gendered social norms might help prevent partner violence among young people in Mexico. We conducted a longitudinal quasi-experimental study at a state-run technical secondary school in Mexico City, with data collection including in-depth interviews and focus groups with students, teachers, and health educators. We found that the course supported both prevention of and response to partner violence among young people. The data suggest the course promoted critical reflection that appeared to lead to changes in beliefs, intentions, and behaviors related to gender, sexuality, and violence. We identify four elements of the course that seem crucial to preventing partner violence. First, encouraging participants' reflection about romantic relationships, which helped them question whether jealousy and possessive behaviors are signs of love; second, helping them develop skills to communicate about sexuality, inequitable relationships, and reproductive health; third, encouraging care-seeking behavior; and fourth, addressing norms around gender and sexuality, for example demystifying and decreasing discrimination towards sexually diverse populations. The findings reinforce the importance of schools for violence prevention and have implications for educational policy regarding sexuality education. The results suggest that this promising and relatively short-term intervention should be considered as a school-based strategy to prevent and respond to partner violence.

Exploring stigma and social norms in women’s abortion experiences and their expectations of care

“…40,41 In India, in particular, it is important to consider how to ensure that unmarried women, especially those who are young, are aware of their right to care and informed about how to access safe and legal abortion services. Comprehensive sexuality education has been found to inform young people about sexual health services and promote care-seeking behaviour in various contexts, [41][42][43] and could be explored as a strategy to inform younger and unmarried women about their right to abortion care and how to access it.…”

Evaluating complex interventions using qualitative longitudinal research: a case study of understanding pathways to violence prevention

“…Original manuscript uploaded prior to peer review: Evaluating complex interventions using qualitative longitudinal research: a case study of understanding pathways to violence prevention Repeat interviews conducted frequently may be particularly useful for studies examining phenomena and experiences that are complex and change over time in subtle ways, such as sexuality, relationships and violence. Many of our participants had multiple relationships and were experimenting sexually or questioning their sexuality over the data collection period (Makleff et al, 2019). Transition to adulthood is a time of rapid change (UNAIDS, 2004;Kågesten et al, 2016;Blum, Mmari and Moreau, 2017;Mmari et al, 2017), and frequent data collection may be particularly useful for this age group to capture evolving relationship experiences and reflections (Giordano et al, 2010;Price et al, 2016).…”

“…First, these methods are fitting to examine social policies or programs in their real-life settings (Lewis, 2007;Thomson, 2007;Calman, Brunton and Molassiotis, 2013;Thomson and McLeod, 2015). Because IPV-related interventions are by their nature social -they address interpersonal relationships and are generally delivered to groups such as schools, families or Original manuscript uploaded prior to peer review: Evaluating complex interventions using qualitative longitudinal research: a case study of understanding pathways to violence prevention Original manuscript uploaded prior to peer review: Evaluating complex interventions using qualitative longitudinal research: a case study of understanding pathways to violence prevention 5 study setting, research design, data collection and evaluation findings are published elsewhere (Makleff et al, 2019).…”

What and how: doing good research with young people, digital intimacies, and relationships and sex education

“…Moreover, young people are using digital media to seek information in myriad ways. Digital technologies provide alternative informal sources of sexuality which young people often find more engaging and perceive as more relevant than formal sexuality education (Abidin 2017;Makleff et al 2019). Technology allows young people to seek out and access information about sex autonomously and independently (Ragonese, Bowman, and Tolman 2017) and to share and produce that information amongst themselves.…”