1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The goal of the study was to develop and validate a typology of violent family environments on the basis of internal variables such as disciplinary strategies, parental attitudes toward corporal punishment, and domestic violence.» (p. 602)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«Our study is based on data taken from a large population survey on family violence conducted by the Quebec Statistics Institute (QSI) in 2004 (Clément et al. 2005).» (p. 597) Depending of the data available, 2 621 or 2 018 children were part of the sample.

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Our results show that the four-cluster solution [abusive, nonabusive, paradoxical and harsh] is the best one for classifying families on the basis of these variables and that the profiles obtained differ significantly when they are compared on the basis of external individual and family variables. Furthermore, the profiles were validated with similar breakdowns for internal and external variables in 1999 and 2004. This finding is important, because, as far as we know, no study to date has validated a typology by cluster analysis using two independent population samples. Several authors believe that comparing groups on the basis of external variables is one of the best ways to validate clusters (Aldenderfer and Blashfield 1984; Bailey 1994).» (p. 602-603) «Our study confirms the importance of research and practice in a context of family violence along a promotion-prevention-cure continuum. Like the authors of other studies who have performed similar analyses, we have found that it would be a better idea to approach the issue of family violence first in terms of degree of severity rather than by looking at specific types of abuse (Higgins 2004; Thompson et al. 1999).» (p. 604)