NCJ Number
104892
Journal
Journal of Marriage and the Family Volume: 47 Dated: (November 1985) Pages: 1051-1058
Date Published
1985
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Data from a national panel study are used to explore the neglected topic of violence toward parents among 1,545 white male high school youth during their sophomore, junior, and senior years.
Abstract
The overall incidence of this violence is relatively low (from 7 percent to 11 percent for violence toward either parent) in all three periods and does not increase over time. However, more violence is directed toward fathers than mothers, and the proportion of violence directed toward fathers rises considerably in the senior year. Certain aspects of both the style with which parents exercise their power and the level of family cohesion are consistently related to youth-to-parent violence, as is youths' religiosity. Consideration of the need for theories specifically geared toward child-initiated family violence, rather than theories extrapolated from research on adult-initiated family violence, concludes the paper. 2 tables, 4 footnotes, and 25 references. (Author abstract modified)