**Note to ODVN staff- this resource is located in the Violence Prevention section**

Product Description:

This study axamines adolescents' ideas about girls' and boys' and boys' use and experience of physical and psychological abuse in heterosexual dating relationships.  Canadian high school students who were enrolled in Grades 9 and 11 took part in single-gender focus groups.  Eight themes emerged from the analysis.  The themes highlight the importance teenagers place on context for defining specific behaviors as abusive.  They also underscore gender differences in th criteria adolescents use to make these judgements, in the forms of abusive behavior teenagers typically use in dating relationship, and the reasons for youths' declining use of physical abuse and increasing use of psychological abuse.  These views have important implications for future research and for programs targeting adolescent dating violence.