NCJ Number
147496
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Dated: special issue (Fall 1993) Pages: 217-233
Date Published
1993
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Focusing mainly on homicide, this paper discusses the achievements and promise of cross-cultural studies of interpersonal violence.
Abstract
Cross-national research typically uses quantitative data and compares countries, whereas cross-cultural research typically uses data that are initially qualitative and compares societies. The coding of variables for a society in a cross-cultural study is generally based on the ethnographic information that is available for at least one community or locality in the society. The two main issues involved in studying violence cross-culturally are now to define variables theoretically to fit cross-cultural variation and how to construct operational measures that can be applied to most ethnographically described cases. Research to date has focused on the link between violence and child-rearing customs, war, cultural patterns, and social structures. The major advantage of cross-cultural studies is their potentially universal validity. If different kinds of studies (comparisons of individuals within societies, cross-regional comparisons within societies, cross-national comparisons, and cross-cultural comparisons) produce the same or related predictors of interpersonal violence, our understanding will be most trustworthy and useful. Notes and 59 references