Intimate partner violence: Attitudes in a sample of Italian students

Domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) represent a widespread phenomenon. Several studies that focus on students and their attitudes toward DV and IPV indicate that changes in attitudes may depend on gender. The purpose of this study was to explore the perception of violence against women among 4,200 undergraduate Italian students and how these perceptions are associated with gender. Students were recruited as volunteers to fill out a questionnaire specifically developed to evaluate their attitudes regarding IPV. Relations were explored by crosstabulation analysis with the Chi-square test and post hoc evaluation of adjusted standardized residuals. The students appeared to be sensitive to relevant topics regarding violence, but they demonstrated a lack of confidence in legal institutions. Looking at gender differences, the male students tended to justify a perpetrator’s actions more than the females. This could be explained as a more distant view of the phenomenon for male students compared to females, probably due to cultural differences.