Disdainful Hookups: a Powerful Social Determinant of Health.

The health consequences of gender violence, a global health and social problem, are increasingly studied. Among its roots, research has identified a coercive dominant discourse imposing the idea that masculinities and relationships marked by abuse and domination are more attractive than egalitarian ones. To prevent the health consequences of gender violence, it is necessary to understand the factors that lead many adolescents to fall into it. This study aims to identify the specific mechanisms by which the coercive dominant discourse manifests in the peer group and its consequences for adolescents. Forty-one 15- and 16-year-old female adolescents from three high schools in Barcelona participated in the study. Eight communicative discussion groups were conducted to deepen on participants' perceptions regarding how peer interactions promote the learning of attraction to violence in sexual-affective relationships. The results show that the participants perceived and experienced different types of coercion to have violent relationships in their peer group interactions. Those interactions fostered the reproduction of the association between sexual-affective attraction and males with aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Many peers coerce others to have disdainful hookups which have very negative health consequences for the victims, including suicidal ideation and committing suicide. Some peer groups become a risk developmental context for female adolescents as far as they foster the coercive dominant discourse, push some young women to engage in violent sporadic relationships, and even harass some others afterwards. This clarifies the importance of peer group-level interventions when addressing the health consequences of gender violence in adolescence.

Evidence of Gender Violence Negative Impact on Health as a Lever to Change Adolescents' Attitudes and Preferences towards Dominant Traditional Masculinities.

Women and girls experience gender violence from a young age. Scientific research has presented evidence of the negative impact of toxic relationships and toxic stress on physical and psychological health. However, less is known on how this evidence can have a preventive effect. Knowing these impacts can be important for women and girls to decide the type of affective-sexual relationships they want to have, and even transform their attraction towards different types of masculinity. This study presents results from the MEMO4LOVE project. Researchers use mixed-methods approaches, including a questionnaire (n = 141) to study adolescents' peer groups' interactions that promoted healthy or toxic affective-sexual relationships, and five communicative focus groups with boys and girls to analyze how these interactions can be transformed by sharing scientific knowledge on the effects of violent relationships with adolescents. The results showed the impact of sharing with adolescents the evidence of the adverse effects of toxic relationships with violent masculinities on health. The peer group's transformation occurred: non-violent boys gained self-confidence, and girls redirected or reinforced their attraction to non-violent boys. These results suggest the potential positive effects of knowing the impacts of toxic relationships on girls' health.

Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings.

Enhancing the quality of learning opportunities for students with disabilities and the learning level attained is a pending challenge. This challenge is especially relevant in the context of special schools, where the learning possibilities derived from interactions with others is limited. However, providing these students with a sufficient level of instrumental learning, such as literacy, and communicative and reasoning abilities is crucial for their subsequent educational and social opportunities. In this case study we analyse a special school that has implemented Dialogic Literary Gatherings with their students as a means to increase learning interactions within the group around the reading and debate of classical books. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the school principal and with a teacher of the transition to adult life course, and two focus groups were conducted with teachers-one with primary education teachers and one with secondary education teachers-and two focus groups with students-one with primary education students and one secondary education and transition to adult life students-. On the one hand, results show the characteristics of the Dialogic Literary Gatherings that allowed these students to participate and learn. On the other hand, several improvements have been observed. First, regarding instrumental learning, students increased their motivation for reading, and improved their communicative and reasoning abilities and in their reading proficiency. Second, regarding students' behavior, conflict has reduced, solidarity attitudes have increased, and they have acquired dialogic and argumentative habits. Finally, at the emotional level, they gained self-esteem and confidence and feel more empowered to make their voice heard.

Gender violence among youth: an effective program of preventive socialization to address a public health problem.

Gender violence among youth is a worldwide public health problem. Youth is increasingly exposed to violence in sexual-affective relationships, both stable and sporadic, and the age of victimization decreases. This adverse life experience affects many areas of youth's life, such as education, social relationships and, especially, their physical and mental health, with consequences that can be very harmful in the short and long-term. This situation has given rise to many anti-violence programs for adolescents and youth, yet as some worldwide prestigious organizations, like the American Psychological Association, have pointed out, many of those programs do not work. In this article, we present a program of preventive socialization of gender violence addressed to adolescents that has proven effectiveness. The program was composed of seven interventions based on the social impact of the evidence on preventive socialization of gender violence. It was applied at a group level in groups of 15-16 years old teenagers in three high schools in Barcelona. The interventions were conducted over a period of one school year and shared the trait of discussing research evidence on preventive socialization of gender violence with the youth through egalitarian dialogue. These interventions have proved to have a preventive effect of gender violence victimization on the participating teenagers by raising their critical consciousness regarding a coercive dominant discourse in society that associates attractiveness and violence, supporting the transformation of their memories of violent sexual-affective relationships, and providing them tools to better analyze their and their friends' sexual-affective relationships along the lines of identifying gender violence and being more prepared to help others in this regard. The manuscript describes every intervention applied.