Introduction

Terms matter in any social movement, and each term carries its own perspective, analysis and policy implications; different terms emphasise different dimensions of the problem. For example:

Similarly, ‘gender violence’ or ‘gender-based violence’, the terms which are most frequently used in international documents, such as the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, broaden discussions of relationship violence beyond heterosexual relationships, but they do not indicate that it is women who are disproportionately the victims of such violence (Merry, 2009: 28).

Teen dating violence (TDV) is an incomplete, placeholder term – young people may not yet be teens, may not be dating or going anywhere together and there might not be any standard measures of the physical or sexual violence present in their relationships. Nonetheless, young people are affiliating (‘going together’) at younger and younger ages; their affiliated relationship may only last for a day or a week, and it may consist of nothing beyond verbal interactions, yet the notion of coupling and exclusivity may be present in their affiliation.

For over 30 years, my research has focused on the precursors to TDV – by which I mean the enactment of sexual harassment in schools, the location where most young people meet, hang out and develop, for better or worse, patterns of social interactions. Schools may also serve as the location or training ground for domestic violence; a place where sexual harassing behaviors conducted in public may provide license to proceed in private (Stein, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1999).

Interpersonal violence among teenagers who are involved in a dating relationship is recognised as a major public health, education and legal problem in the US (Levesque, 1997; CDC, 2012). TDV results in injuries, poorer mental/physical health, more ‘high-risk’/deviant behavior, and increased school avoidance (Fineran and Gruber, 2004; Howard et al, 2007a, 2007b; Gruber and Fineran, 2008).