Youth Strategies for Positive Bystander Action in Situations of Dating and Sexual Violence: Implications for Measurement and Programming:

Research on bystander behavior in situations of dating violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) in youth populations is growing; yet, there is a distinct lack of qualitative studies to identify nuances in specifically how and when youth are taking action to help to inform theory, measurement, and programming. The current study examined bystander action plans of high school youth after their participation in a classroom-based, bystander-focused prevention program, to inform bystander behavior measurement and programming within the context of DV and SV research and practice. High school youth (N = 889) from schools across New England completed a bystander-focused violence prevention curriculum and subsequently wrote a bystander plan of action addressing a situation of DV or SV that they had seen before or were likely to see again in the future. The responses were qualitatively coded for type of situation and bystander action, while noting situational aspects (e.g., location, relationship to those involved, en...