ABSTRACT
This thesis investigated risk factors, predictors and mediators of violence against women and self-reported aggression among second generation refugee, migrant and native Swiss adolescents. Data were acquired from the Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso), an ongoing longitudinal study that that has tracked the development of 1675 children from the age of 7 until 20 years old. This is the first study to ever explore differences in the prevalence and predictors of aggression and attitudes in support of violence against women among adolescents of three different migration backgrounds: second-generation refugee, second-generation migrant, and native, at different stages of their adolescence (ages 15 and 17 years for attitudes towards violence against women, and 13, 15, 17, and 20 years for self-reported aggression).
The research was led by four theoretical perspectives: attachment theory, social learning theory, patriarchal ideologies, and social cognition, and used a quantitative approach to a) investigate whether there were differences in aggression and violence against women attitudes among second-generation refugee, migrant and native Swiss adolescents, b) what risk factors were associated with higher levels of aggression and attitudes in support of violence against women among second-generation refugee youths, c) what factors were associated with higher levels of aggression and attitudes that support violence against women among the migration groups, and d) what factors mediated the relationship between migration background and violence against women attitudes/self-reported aggression.
Findings indicated that the overall mean score of attitudes justifying violence against women across the sample was low. Scores for second-generation refugee youths were marginally higher than those of second-generation migrant and native youths. No significant mean differences were found between second-generation refugees and other migration groups at age 15. However, significant mean differences emerged at age 17 years, with second-generation refugees reporting significantly marginally higher levels of violence against women attitudes.
Similarly, there were no significant mean differences in aggression between the groups when the youths were 13 years old (early adolescence), but from 15 years onwards, second-generation refugees reported significantly higher levels of aggression than their second-generation migrant and native peers.
Results indicated risk factors of attitudes in support of violence against women among second-generation refugee youths to be higher levels of moral neutralisation of aggression, violence legitimising norms of masculinity, and experience of corporal punishment.
In terms of self-reported aggression, risk factors identified among second-generation refugee youths were lower levels of parental involvement and competent conflict coping strategies, and higher levels of corporal punishment, holding violence legitimising norms of masculinity, and moral neutralisation of aggression.
Significant predictors of attitudes in support of violence against women across the whole sample were having a refugee background, lower levels of parental education, higher levels of moral neutralisation and experience of corporal punishment. Moreover, significant predictors of self-reported aggression were also having a refugee background, experience of corporal punishment, having delinquent peers, attitudes in support of violence against women, higher levels of moral neutralisation of aggression and aggressive conflict coping strategies, and lower levels of competent conflict coping strategies. Separate regression analyses were conducted for each group to identify significant predictors of violence against women attitudes and aggression for each migration background.
Following a significant relationship between having a refugee background and violence against women attitudes and aggression, mediation analyses showed that the effect of having a refugee migration background on attitudes towards violence against women was partially mediated by moral neutralisation of aggression and experience of corporal punishment.
Finally, mediation analyses were conducted at ages 15, 17, and 20 for the relationship between having a refugee background and aggression, and at age 20 for the relationship between having a migrant background and aggression. Results indicated that the relationship between having a migrant background and self-reported aggression at age 20 was fully mediated by past-experience of corporal punishment. In contrast, mediation analyses conducted among adolescents with a refugee background at ages 15, 17 and 20 all showed that the relationship between having a refugee background and self-reported aggression was only partially mediated by experience of corporal punishment, having delinquent peers, aggressive conflict coping strategies, parental involvement, moral neutralisation of aggression, and attitudes in support of violence against women.
