Exposure to intimate partner violence and its consequences on student adjustment

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Although Spain has made an important deployment of legislative initiatives and techniques to approach intimate partner violence (IPV) in recent years, these ones have been focused on the women as the victims of abuse, leaving out the center of attention the children of these women and the potential impact of IPV in their psychosocial development. The study, which is part of a research carried out on children and their mothers which were living in sheltered accommodation, analyzes the impact of exposure to IPV in their school adjustment. MÉTHOD. The sample consisted of 117 Spanish children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years old and the information has been collected from a questionnaire filled out by the staff who worked at the sheltered centre. RESULTS. Some difficulties are noticed in both academic achievement and the adaptation of students to school. It also identifies some variables that seem to have an impact on this problem. DISCUSSION. These outcomes evidence the need to pay greater attention to the difficulties presented by these children and the role of educational environment in the support and detection of these difficulties.