What Are Spanish Educators Doing to Prevent Teen Dating Violence? Identifying The Challenges and Solutions to a Sustainable Nonviolent Education

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_25How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Teen Dating Violence; Policy Enactment Approach; Sustainable Non- violent Education

Abstract

Teen dating violence (TDV) is a critical issue that affects adolescents’ health, well-being, and development, with long-term implications for increased violence throughout life. Tackling them is fundamental to achieving equality and violence-free lives as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. In Spain, TDV prevention is addressed nonspecifically within broader gender violence initiatives in school equality plans and lacks proper focus. In this study, we analysed the problems and proposed improvements for TDV prevention policies and strategies from the perspective of Spanish educators by using a policy enactment approach. Through semi-structured interviews with 30 educators from diverse schools, we identified significant challenges. The study identifies problems in three areas: the design of equality plans, management in educational centers, and community factors. The plans are criticized for being bureaucratic and superficial, lacking adequate evaluation and follow-up. In schools, administrative overload and lack of resources reduce the effectiveness of the programs. High staff turnover/itinerarncy and insufficient training exacerbate the situation. At the community level, limited family participation and the negative influence of cultural patterns and social networks are key obstacles. The proposed activities focused on creating a comprehensive plan with community participation, improving coordination between programs, dedicating specific time and resources for planning and training, and using participatory methodologies. Our study highlights the need for targeted, well-coordinated efforts in TDV prevention and advocates for systemic changes in educational policies and practices in Spain to better address and mitigate TDV.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Verónica C. Cala
AU  - Encarnación Soriano-Ayala
AU  - Rachida Dalouh-Ounia
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/28
TI  - What Are Spanish Educators Doing to Prevent Teen Dating Violence? Identifying The Challenges and Solutions to a Sustainable Nonviolent Education
BT  - Proceeding of the 10th International Conference on Lifelong Education and Leadership for ALL (ICLEL 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 338
EP  - 352
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_25
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_25
ID  - Cala2025
ER  -