Cyberdating abuse among High School students: a cross-cultural and gender analysis

INTRODUCTION. Cyberdating abuse among adolescents is an educational and health problem with an increasing incidence in the Spanish society. However, it is rarely addressed in multicul-tural contexts. This study aims to analyse cyberviolence in dating relationships among native and foreign adolescent women and men in the province of Almeria. METHOD. A cross-sectional in-vestigation was carried out using a survey to analyse a sample of 1,219 High School students of Spanish, Moroccan and Romanian origins from the province of Almeria. The participants were between 12 and 20 years old and previously had had a romantic partner. The cyberviolence victi-mization, cyberviolence perpetration and violence justification scales were used, all extracted from the VPA-RC questionnaire. RESULTS. There are high levels of victimization and cybervio-lence in adolescent couple relationships, with more than half of young people suffering and exer-cising violence. Likewise, there is a significantly higher tendency towards the justification of violence in men than in women. Globally, there are no gender differences in the victimization of cyberviolence, but there are in cyberviolence perpetration and the justification of violence, with cyberaggression being recognized by women and justification by men. This study provides evidence that women tend to carry out forms of cyberviolence with an individual impact (control and espionage), while men carry out cyberviolence with a social impact (posting images). Diffe-rences were observed regarding cultural origins, with adolescents born to Moroccan parents ack-nowledging that they suffer and exercise more cyberviolence in dating relationships than their Romanian and Spanish peers. CONCLUSION. This study indicates the importance of preventing cyberviolence from a cross-cultural perspective.