Dating violence: an exploratory characterization study in social education students in higher education

Dating violence among young people in Higher Education hás been pointed out by national and intemational research as a topic of extreme relevance. The purpose of this study is: (i) to characterize the prevalence of victimization behaviors and perpetration of dating violence, distinguishing the studenfs own behavior and his/her partner; (ii) to compare the prevalence of dating violence according to the years of student training. The participants were portuguese students from the Polytechnics Institutes of Bragança and Viseu of Social Education degrees. This quantitative study used as a data collection a sociodemographic questionnaire and the portuguese version of the Conflict in adolescent dating relationships inventory (CADRI-Saavedra et al, 2008), both administered online. Results ofthe first phase ofthis partnership project, developed among the already focused institutions, allow the unveiling of this reality, the development ofpreventive measures ofviolence among young people and also of interpersonal competences required for their future professional practice as Social Educators.