The violence stemming from the occupation and civil war between 2003 and 2008 in Iraq redefined the oppression and suffering of Iraqi women, disrupting and shifting their social and familial roles, while also making them vulnerable as targets in the civil conflict. This thesis demonstrates the complexity of motive and aim to the violence committed against Iraqi women and argues that the effects of that violence were far more wide reaching and layered than simply the impact of the violent act itself. Because of this, the effects of violence go beyond the battlefield and affect women in the most intimate way possible - their lives, their health and that of their children. By analyzing how violence has intruded upon and shaped the daily reality of Iraqi women one is able to better understand the gendered experience of conflict and violence in Iraq and its responsibility for the deterioration of Iraqi women's health and well-being.

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The primary objective of this research was to initiate exploratory research into the coping styles and defense mechanisms of adults vicariously exposed to violent crime. This research focused on determining the presence, nature and complexity of symptoms in those vicariously exposed to violent crime. Gaining an understanding of the coping styles and defense mechanisms that individuals who are vicariously exposed to violent crime adopt was also a central focus of this study. A psychodynamic theoretical framework was employed. Situating this research within a broader theory of coping was also necessary. Zeidner and Endler's (1996) integrative conceptual framework was used to understand the coping styles that one adopts as being both dispositional and contextual. Semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with seven respondents (Wengraf,2001). Ulin et al.'s (2002) method of qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze and interpret data. Emotion-focused coping was found to be the prominent form of coping used by the respondents. It appeared that when problem-focused coping fails to alleviate the individual's anxiety, they then engage in emotion focused coping. Two forms of emotion focused coping were identified: adaptive and pathological emotion focused coping. With regards to vicarious trauma symptoms, a variety of five symptoms were evident across the transcripts. It is also necessary to emphasize that respondents experienced variable combinations of symptoms and generally did not experience all of such symptoms. It was concluded that in the presence of the vicarious exposure to violent crime, participants utilized various defense mechanism (such as: splitting, rationalization, displacement, intellectualization and suppression) which inform their coping style and their experience of symptoms of vicarious trauma. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Interpersonal violence against women is a prevalent and often accepted part of North American life. Statistics from both Canada and the United States indicate that one-half of North American women have experienced at least one incident of sexual or physical violence that affects their physical, emotional, and/or mental health. Governments and institutions, including educational institutions, minimize the prevalence of violence and the often debilitating effects it can have on women, silencing the voices of women who have experienced violence, and obscuring the need for intervention and prevention. The primary objective of this study was to examine the connections between women's experiences with interpersonal violence and their educational experiences in graduate school. More generally, I hoped to add to the limited information about how violence affects learning. I interviewed 11 female graduate students who had experienced interpersonal violence about their experiences in graduate school. The research revealed that the participants connected their experiences with interpersonal violence to their graduate school experiences through the effects of unequal relations of power and of silencing on their self-confidence and self-determination. They also recognized graduate school as a place where they were sometimes able to recover a sense of voice and personal authority that they felt was "lost" in their violent interpersonal relationship(s). The study findings point to the need for university policy makers and administrators, faculty, and students to understand the effects that experiencing violence may have on women's learning. At the most basic level, policy makers and administrators must think about the gendered implications when creating policies and suggesting strategies for implementation. In addition, pedagogical policies and practices, including the graduate supervisory model, need to be examined from a gendered perspective for issues of power and the possible abuse(s) of power. Through recognizing the prevalence and effects of interpersonal violence against women and addressing how relations of power in graduate school programs may reflect those experiences and affect women's learning, institutions of higher education will increase opportunities for female students and others affected by violence, to be successful, and will strengthen the learning of all students.

Analyzing school as institution impact to violence firstly looked to adolescence. Author summaries, that adolescence is one of difficult personality evolution stage. In this stage adolescence has a lot of problems. This paper also took a view about educator and family role to adolescence education. Author accents that to violence manifestation impacts family, contemporary and educators valuables. Research in Vilnius schools show that violence is in all schools in all forms but in different intensity. Also is different opinion both schoolchildren and educators. Author say, that schoolmaster must a lot to do to prevent violence at school. Author notice that at first must be eliminated apathy to this phenomenon and given more publicity.

THE TOPIC OF THE DISCUSSION: “ Children approach to a prevention of violence at school” SUPERVISOR: Dr. Ieva Kuginytė VILNIUS PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY, VILNIUS, 2005 Violence at school is very actual problem not only in Lithuania also worldwide. There is a lot of prevention programmes at this moment witch could reduce such phenomenon spread. The aim of this paper is to evaluate pupils’ opinion to violence prevention. First part of this paper analyzes violence prevalence. The author gives violator and the victim characteristics and looks at violence reasons and results. The second part gives a view about Lithuanian prevention programmes and analyzes pedagogical prevention presumption. After this research author gives a conclusion that violence at school is evident in all forms and from different people. The main violators are older schoolchildren. The critical situation is when the violator and the educator is the same person. Schoolchildren say that the intervation of the third person ( police) is necessary in order to prevent violence and increase security at school. The main prevention tool, according to the children, is to educate how to act in any violence situation. Finally, the author gives some practical violence prevention at school recommendations which could improve the current situation and could possibly impact on further positive changes.

Researchers have consistently identified two distinct types of aggression: A “hot-blooded”, impulsive, reactive form of aggression, and a “cold-blooded”, premeditated, instrumental form of aggression. Despite the relevance of psychopathology to the prediction of violent offending, there has been limited research on the role of mental health factors in subtypes of severe criminal violence. Childhood maltreatment history has also demonstrated associations with both psychopathology and violence, yet has not been investigated in subtypes of severe violence in adults. In the current study, the relationships between mental health history, substance use, personality pathology, maltreatment, and subtypes of criminal violence were examined in a sample of 144 incarcerated male offenders. Domain-specific multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated that the likelihood of reactive violence was predicted by the severity of alcohol use history and polysubstance intoxication at the time of the offence. Whereas there was a trend for stimulant use history to be predictive of reactive violence, stimulant intoxication at the time of offence was exclusively associated with instrumental violence. Severity of opiate use history revealed a trend for association with the likelihood of instrumental violence. Specific Axis I mental health problems, personality pathology, and maltreatment history were not predictive of violence subtype. Although psychopathy was not a significant individual predictor of violence subtype, the interaction between substance intoxication and specific psychopathic traits contributed significantly to the prediction of violence subtype. A final logistic regression model identified stimulant intoxication, polysubstance intoxication, and alcohol use history as key predictors of violence subtype. This model allowed for the prediction of subtype of violence at a rate higher than chance. In addition to risk-factor analyses, person-focused analyses identified four clusters of offenders in the current sample: A High Psychopathology cluster, a Low Psychopathology cluster, an Antisocial cluster, and a Moderate Schizoid Traits cluster. Clusters differed significantly on psychopathology profiles, and were marginally different on maltreatment history. However, clusters demonstrated limited association with subtype of violence. Findings from this research have important implications for violence risk prediction, offender profiling, and developing targeted intervention services.

Executive functions (EF) are higher-level control processes that regulate lower-level processes to shape complex performance. Although remaining an elusive construct, researchers have dichotomized EF into “cool” cognitive processes, such as cognitive flexibility, and “hot” emotional processes, such as decision-making. The current study investigated both “cool” and “hot” EF as moderators of the relation between provocation and aggression. Undergraduate participants (N = 224) completed measures of “cool” and “hot” EF. Aggression was measured using a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm in which participants blasted an ostensive “partner” after receiving positive or negative feedback. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task was associated with aggression for males, but not for females; the Trail Making Test- Part B was not related to aggression; the Iowa Gambling Task was the strongest predictor of aggression for both genders. Findings highlight the importance of including measures of “cool” and “hot” EF in the assessment of aggression.

Little is known about what factors contribute to resilience or how resilience is experienced by survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using in-depth semi-structured interviews, two qualitative studies examined how resilience is defined, conceptualized, and experienced by survivors of IPV. Ten adult women participated in study 1 and data was analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify a variety of internal and external factors and mechanisms that contributed to resilience. Sixteen adult women participated in study 2 and data was analyzed using Colaizzi’s (1978) phenomenological method. Resilience was experienced as a series of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural shifts across three theme areas: toward resistance, in the experience of control, and toward positivity. Together, these studies suggest that for survivors of IPV, resilience is experienced as a personalized, ongoing, and dynamic process involving multiple internal and external pathways that facilitate shift experiences. / Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada