Domestic violence against women : perceptions of international students

The purpose of this study was to assess and contrast international students' perceptions of violence against women in their home countries. The sample of 120 students was obtained from 890 international students enrolled during the Fall semester 1988 at the University of Tennessee by quota sampling according to country category. The results were contrasted among four country categories: low- (I), lower middle- (II), upper middle- (III) and industrial market (IV) countries.

Instrumentation consisted of a survey instrument designed by the researcher to measure students perception of awareness of the problem, nature, cause and prevention of woman abuse in their home country. The respondents completed the questionnaire resulting in the computation of percentages. Further, the mean rank for each country category was computed and then compared. Results were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis one way anova and Mann Whitney U Wilcoxon procedures. The findings of this study led to the following conclusions regarding the international students sampled in this investigation.

Respondents from the low-income (I) countries and industrial market (IV) countries were significantly more aware of the existence of the problem and of services availability.

Students from the industrial market (IV) countries assessed the problem more accurately according to current research which describes woman abuse to include emotional and verbal abuse, crossing all socio-economic and educational levels.

Respondents from the lower middle- (II) income countries tended to view that the problem needs to be handled privately, while respondents from industrial market (IV) countries believed in the public solution. Socio-economic equality was seen as prevention by primarily students from the low-income (I) countries. While education promoting equality was viewed as a preventive measure by industrial market (IV) respondents.

In conclusion respondents from industrial market (IV) countries assessed the problem more accurately according to current research. However this does not indicate that the problem is less prevalent in the other country categories.