Child & Youth Services

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Laying Down the Family Burden: A Cross-Cultural

Analysis of Resilience in the Midst of Family
Violence

Wassilis Kassis , Sibylle Artz & Stephanie Moldenhauer

To cite this article: Wassilis Kassis , Sibylle Artz & Stephanie Moldenhauer (2013) Laying Down
the Family Burden: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Resilience in the Midst of Family Violence, Child &
Youth Services, 34:1, 37-63, DOI: 10.1080/0145935X.2013.766067

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Child & Youth Services, 34:37–63, 2013
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0145-935X print=1545-2298 online
DOI: 10.1080/0145935X.2013.766067

Laying Down the Family Burden:

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Resilience
in the Midst of Family Violence

WASSILIS KASSIS
School of Educational Sciences, University of Osnabrueck, Osnabrueck, Germany

SIBYLLE ARTZ
School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

STEPHANIE MOLDENHAUER
School of Educational Sciences, University of Osnabrueck, Osnabrueck, Germany

Questionnaire data from a cross-sectional study of a randomly

selected sample of 5,149 middle-school students from four EU
countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) were used to
explore the effects of family violence burden level, structural and
procedural risk and protective factors, and personal characteristics
on adolescents who are resilient to depression and aggression
despite being exposed to domestic violence. Using logistic regression
to identify resilience characteristics, our results indicate that struc-
tural risks like one’s sex, migration experience, and socioeconomic
status were not predictive of either family violence burden levels or
resilience. Rather, nonresilience to family violence is derived from
a combination of negative experiences with high levels of family
violence in conjunction with inconsistent parenting, verbally
aggressive teachers, alcohol and drug misuse and experiences of
indirect aggression with peers. Overall, negative factors outweigh
positive factors and play a greater role in determining the resili-
ence level that a young person achieves.

This study, STAMINA: Formation of Non-Violent Behavior in School and During Leisure
Time among Young Adults from Violent Families, was funded from 2009–2011 by the EC
Daphne III Program whose stated purpose is to combat all forms of violence against children,
young people, and women (Project-number: JLS=2007=DAP-1= 134 30-CE-02280 90=00-40).
The STAMINA Project was additionally funded by the German Federal Ministry of Family
Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.
Address correspondence to Wassilis Kassis, School of Educational Sciences, University
Osnabrueck, Heger-Tor-Wall 9, 49069 Osnabrueck, Germany. E-mail: wkassis@uos.de

37
38 W. Kassis et al.

KEYWORDS adolescence, aggression, depression, family violence,

resilience

Despite the existing child protection laws in our societies, children are more
victimized than adults. Finkelhor’s (2008) study confirms that in the United
Kingdom, as well as in the United States, adolescents are nearly three times
more likely to experience being assaulted and are more than twice as likely
to be raped. Almost 28% of adolescents in the U.S.-National Longitudinal Study
of Adolescent Health reported physical abuse by caregivers during childhood
(Hussey, Chang, & Kotch, 2006). Our study, conducted in the four EU-countries
(Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) provides us with similar results: 24% of
the adolescents (with an average age of 14.5 years) experienced physical par-
ental abuse and 17% witnessed physical spousal abuse (Kassis et al., 2010).
The experience of violence in the family is an established risk factor for
the development of violent behavior and depression in adolescence (Gilbert
et al., 2009; Hussey et al., 2006; Kassis et al., 2010; Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt,
& Kenny, 2003; Yates, Dodds, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2003). Recent research in
criminology and sociology has also highlighted the prediction strength of struc-
tural factors like socioeconomic status (Cullen, Unnever, Hartman, Turner, &
Agnew, 2008; Kaufman, Rebellon, Thaxton, & Agnew, 2008), procedural family
characteristics like parenting style (Loeber, Slot, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2008;
Sampson & Wilson, 2011) and the prevalence (Rebellon, Piquero, Piquero, &
Thaxton, 2009) and level of family violence (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner,
2007) and noted that higher levels of family violence and higher procedural
risks are linked with more severe effects of family violence on children.
Interestingly, although research on structural and procedural family
characteristics have clearly established a significant connection between fam-
ily violence and aggression and depression in adolescents, these same factors
have not yet been similarly examined in the research that focuses on adoles-
cents who are resilient to violence engagement and depressive tendencies
despite having experiencing family violence (Van der Put, Van der Laan,
Stams, Deković, & Hoeve, 2011).
Following on Wade (1997), we undertake such an investigation here
and pose three questions: Can the level of family violence, structural factors
and procedural protective and risk factors and personal characteristics be
used for the probabilistic identification of aggression and depression resili-
ence pathways out of the cycle of violence?

STRUCTURAL AND PROCEDURAL PREDICTORS OF FAMILY

VIOLENCE AND THEIR ADAPTATION TO THE PREDICTING
RESILIENCE

Low socioeconomic status (Rebellon et al., 2009), and migration (Murray, Far-
rington, & Eisner, 2009; Pauwels & Svensson, 2009) are known factors that are
 Laying Down the Family Burden 39

connected with higher family violence levels because, so the explanation goes,
fewer resources and structural barriers that prevent the achievement of monet-
ary and social can contribute raising parents’ stress levels to the point of elicit-
ing violent responses (Agnew, 2011). As children are exposed to violence
under such condition, they also become more vulnerable to engaging in
aggression, violence, delinquency and criminal behavior (Wolfe, Crooks,
Lee, McIntyre-Smith, & Jaffe, 2003). Accordingly, structural inequalities may
not only pressure parents into family violence and adolescents into delin-
quency, but also diminish the possibility for violence resilience. Thus, the stress
of low socioeconomic status (SES) can be seen to be a part of a chain of inter-
connected structural and procedural risks where a lack of resources contributes
to detrimental parental behavior, which in turn, contributes to the development
of negative behavior in children. This chain of events may have an even stron-
ger impact on boys than on girls because in general, boys are often more often
physically abused by family members than girls (Connell, Beale, Spencer &
Aber, 1994) and because boys from low SES families seem to be physically
abused at higher levels (Cullen et al., 2008; Kaufman et al., 2008) and subjected
to higher levels of harsh and authoritarian parenting (Phythian, Keane, & Krull,
2008). Accordingly, the obstruction of positive outcomes by negative or aver-
sive treatment by relevant others should play a role not only in predicting
aggression and violence but also in predicting resilience.
Along with low SES, one of the key aversive experience relevant to the
emergence of violent behavior is exposure to higher levels of family violence
in childhood and adolescence, which increases the likelihood of developing
and maintaining aggression and depression in adolescence (Aisenberg & Her-
renkohl, 2008; Gilbert et al., 2009). Individually and together, exposure to family
violence, authoritarian parenting, the lack of the possibility to talk with parents
about aggression experiences and how to avoid future violence, and low par-
ental supervision create enormous barriers to developmental success and con-
tributes to directly and indirectly to aggression in adolescence (Loeber, Slot,
et al., 2008; Sampson & Wilson, 2011). Adolescents who have been exposed
to family violence are also more vulnerable to depression and to a combination
of experiencing depression and using aggression against peers (Dunn et al.,
2011; Leadbeater, Thompson, & Gruppuso, 2011; Stromshak et al., 2009; Zinzow
et al., 2009). The main types of family violence that have been linked with both
aggression and depression in adolescents are physical maltreatment by parents
(Gilbert et al., 2009; Hussey et al., 2006) and witnessing physical or psychologi-
cal aggression between parents (Kitzmann et al., 2003; Yates et al., 2003).

PREDICTING RESILIENCE IN ADOLESCENCE WITH

PROCEDURAL RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS

We use the definition of risk factors for resilience proposed by Loeber,

Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, & White (2008) and state that something is
40 W. Kassis et al.

a risk factor when the variable is shown to precede a negative outcome.

Kraemer et al (1997) have shown that these correlated risk factors predict
negative outcomes, but remind us that correlation and precedence are not
sufficient to establish causality (Kraemer, Stice, Kazdin, Offord, & Kupfer,
2001). We agree with Kramer et al. (1997) and with Murray et al. (2009) that
in order for a factor to be termed a risk factor that jeopardizes resilience it
must meet the important criterion of theoretical plausibility and must be able
to empirically predict resilience.
As we know from the initial work of Liebenberg and Ungar (2009) and
Aisenberg and Herrenkohl (2008), resilience as a holistic concept is better
understood if risks are modeled not only on individual factors but also on
contextual factors like family and school (Foorman, York, Santi, & Francis,
2008; Loeber, Farrington, et al., 2008). We contend therefore, that resilience
models that examine the relationship between family and school risk factors
and the behavioral risks of the individual are needed. If we continue to struc-
ture our analysis of protective factors only in terms of individual traits and
characteristics, we continue to run the risk of victim blaming, that is; turning
back to the individual as the sole source of explanations for why resilience is
not achieved (Aisenberg & Herrenkohl, 2008).

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL PROCEDURAL RISK AND

PROTECTIVE FACTORS FOR RESILIENCE

A number of researchers, (cf. Brownfield & Thompson, 2005) have empha-

sized the importance of the individual’s self-concept as an important protec-
tive factor for violence resilience. Self-acceptance (Donnellan, Trzesniewski,
Robins, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2005; Greenwald et al., 2002), as well as the knowl-
edge that one’s emotions can be controlled (Harter, 2006) despite having
experienced violence in peer and family contexts and an optimistic sense
of the future (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006) are factors that have been shown
to be relevant predictors of resilience (Stucke & Sporer, 2002; Thomaes,
Bushman, Stegge, & Olthof, 2008).
Parenting style is one of the best-evaluated predictors for youth violence
(Leadbeater & Way, 2007). Especially important to predicting youth violence
is the combination of inconsistent parenting with a low level of parental
supervision (Barnes, Hoffman, Welte, Farrell, & Dintcheff, 2006; Bates,
Bader, & Mencken, 2003; Lam & McBride-Chang, 2007).
Previous research on problematic family socialization and substance use
(Barnes et al., 2006; Longshore, Urada, et al., 2004) indicates that alcohol
abuse in adolescence is part of a larger syndrome of other individual risky
behaviors that include repeated social and interpersonal problems, drug
use (Musher-Eizenman, Holub, & Arnett, 2003) and indirect aggression
against peers (Longshore, Chang, Hsieh, & Messina, 2004) and shows that
 Laying Down the Family Burden 41

the likelihood of engaging in alcohol and drug use for adolescents is influ-
enced by the quality of the social bonds in the family (Junger-Tas, Ribeaud,
& Cruyff, 2004; Link, 2008). Additionally, it has been found that aggressive
behavior against peers in adolescence by young people who have been
exposed to family violence is also based on notions of the legitimacy of viol-
ence (Werner & Nixon, 2005) and=or the normative nature (Crick, Grotpeter, &
Bigbee, 2002) of aggression during this life stage. Further as Krahé & Möller
(2004) found, adolescents who had been exposed to coercive parenting not
only normalized aggression but had also internalized a hostile attributional
style and therefore use more physical and direct aggression and more indirect
aggression against their peers (Artz, Nicholson, & Magnuson, 2008; Leadbea-
ter, Banister, Ellis, & Yeung, 2008; Prinstein, Boergers, & Vernberg, 2001).
Educational researchers and criminologists have also provided school
climate based explanations for the use of aggression and violence and
have argued that a positive school climate (Artz & Nicholson, 2010; Hymel,
Bowker, & Woody, 1993; Longshore, Chang, et al., 2004; Prinstein &
Cillessen, 2003) and a good relationship with teachers (Byrne & Lurigio,
2008; Desjardins & Leadbeater, 2011; Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010) are especially
helpful protective social factors for adolescents from violent families. The cen-
tral and shared notion of all these studies is that school based social protective
factors are core to exiting the family violence cycle. A key risk factor within the
school is verbal aggression by teachers, which has been found to be linked to
adolescent use of violence (Khoury-Kassabri, Benbenishty, & Astor, 2005),
such that especially higher levels of verbal aggression by teachers have been
found to be very closely correlated to violence in adolescents (Kassis, 2011).

THE STUDY

The research we report on here is part of a larger study, the STAMINA pro-
ject, Formation of Nonviolent Behavior in School and During Leisure Time
among Young Adults from Violent Families,1 funded from 2009–2011 by
the European Commission Daphne III Program. The STAMINA project inves-
tigated the social (i.e., family, school, peers) and individual (i.e., self-concept,
attitudes, behavior) characteristics of resilient adolescents despite a family
history of violence. In conducting the STAMINA study we employed quanti-
tative and qualitative methods. In this article we report only on quantitative
data that relates to resilience as the subject of this article.

Methods
PARTICIPANTS
The data were collected in spring of 2009 from a random sample of 5,149
eighth-graders in four EU-countries (Austria, n ¼ 724; Germany, n ¼ 2,832;
42 W. Kassis et al.

Slovenia, n ¼ 726; and Spain, n ¼ 867) who completed a questionnaire

anonymously in class. Students were given the option of participating or
declining without penalty. No one chose to decline. Parental consent was
obtained for all participating youth.

DATA COLLECTION
All measures are based on mean-score scales of the adolescents’ self-reports.
In order to create our survey we adapted and adopted the following mea-
sures of protective and risk factors for predicting resilience on the individual
and social level.

Migration status. In order to establish the migration-status we asked the

students to report their country of origin.

Socioeconomic status. Following the PISA-Study (Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik &

Geis, 2003) we computed the socioeconomic status of our respondents by
developing a composite variable based on the z scores of three items: High-
est educational level achieved by the mother, highest educational level
achieved by the father, and the amount of books in the household.

Resilience: aggression and depression resilience indicators. We measu-

red aggression and depression resilience indicators by computing parti-
cipants’ use of aggression against peers and their self-reported tendencies
toward depression. Respondents’ use of physical aggression toward peers
was measured using an 8-item scale (a ¼ .82) entitled Use of physical
aggression against peers developed by Kassis (2003). The items on this scale
inquired about the degree to which students report injuring their peers and
were measured on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘never happened’’ to
‘‘more than once per week’’).
Self-reported tendencies toward depression were assessed using a sub-
scale Depression that consists of five items (a ¼ .78) adapted from the Beck
Depression Inventory (Beck & Alford, 2009). These items measure self-doubt
and a negative attitude toward life, using a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not
true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’).

Family violence indicators. To measure respondents’ experiences with

family violence we employed two subscales adapted from the Family Viol-
ence Inventory developed by Mayer, Fuhrer, & Uslucan (2005): (a) The
5-item subscale, Witnessing physical spousal abuse (a ¼ .88) which investi-
gates witnessing spousal abuse, using a 6-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘never’’
’ to ‘‘more than once a week’’); and (b) The 5-item subscale, Physical abuse
 Laying Down the Family Burden 43

by parents (a ¼ .83), which measures the degree that respondents have

been physically abused by their parents, using a 5-point Likert scale (range ¼
‘‘never’’ to ‘‘very often’’).

Individual protective factors. To investigate individual protective factors,

we examined self-concept and help-seeking behaviors as follows: To mea-
sure self-concept we adopted three subscales developed by Fend (2000)
for his Youth Inventory instrument: (a) The 4-item Self-Acceptance subscale
(a ¼ .59), that measures a respondent’s ability to positively assess him=her-
self; (b) the 4-item Optimistic Future View subscale (a ¼ .68), that speaks
to a young person’s assessment of his=her own future opportunities as not
being limited; and (c) the 4-item Emotional Self-control subscale (a ¼ .65),
that investigates the control of respondents’ emotions and their ability to deal
with their own moods. All three self-concept indicators are assessed with a
4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’). Help-
seeking behaviors were measured using the 4-item subscale, Seeking help
to avoid violence behavior (a ¼ .76) that measures help seeking behavior
on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’)
specifically developed by Kassis (2011) for this survey.

Social protective factors in families and schools. To investigate social

protective factors in families and schools we employed three subscales that
examined the quality of respondents’ parental supervision, the closeness of
their relationships with teachers and the social climate of their schools.
Respondents’ experiences with parental supervision were assessed
using the 4-item Parental supervision subscale (a ¼ .76) developed by Kassis
(2003) who adapted a previous scale developed by Loeber and Dishion
(1984). This scale measures parental supervision as a form of positive sup-
port and guidance for children, using a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true
at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’).
Respondents’ experiences with teachers were assessed using the 4-item
subscale (a ¼ .78), Close relationship with teachers developed by Fend
(2000), rated on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely
true’’).
Respondents’ assessments of the social climates of their schools were
calculated using four items derived from Fend’s (2000) Youth Inventory out
of which we created a 4-item subscale (a ¼ .85) entitled School Climate that
examines student-to-student relationships, rated on a 4-point Likert scale
(range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’).

Individual risk factors. To investigate individual risk factors we used

three subscales that examined respondents’ aggression supportive beliefs,
their alcohol consumption and their drug use.
44 W. Kassis et al.

Aggression supportive beliefs were measured using a 4-item subscale

(a ¼ .82), entitled, Aggression-supportive beliefs, taken from the Survey of
Student Life first developed by Artz and Riecken (1994a, 1994b), and elabo-
rated in Artz, Nicholson, and McNamara (2009), that employs a 4-point Likert
scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’) to gauge the extent to
which a young person is willing to solve problems by using physical
aggression.
Substance use was measured using two subscales: (a) the 6-item Alcohol
consumption subscale (a ¼ .85), specifically developed for this survey by the
project-team (Kassis, 2011) on a 5-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘never’’ to
‘‘every day’’) to assess alcohol consumption; and (b) The 8-item (a ¼ .93)
subscale Usage of drugs, specifically developed for this survey (Kassis,
2011) on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘never’’ to ‘‘often’’), to assess drugs
consumption.

Social risk factors. To investigate respondents’ levels of a variety for

known social risks: indirect aggression against peers by sex of target, incon-
sistent parenting style and teachers’ verbal aggression we employed four
subscales as follows:
Respondents’ use of indirect aggression against peers was examined
using with two 3-item subscales, Indirect aggression against girls (a ¼ .69)
and Indirect aggression against boys (a ¼ .76). These two indirect aggression
subscales were developed by Artz et al. (2009), and are based on Tremblay’s
(2000) work on non-observable forms of aggression. The items of these two
subscales are measured on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘never happened’’
to ‘‘more than once per week’’).
To assess the level of inconsistent parenting experienced by respon-
dents we employed the 5-item subscale (a ¼ .83), entitled Inconsistent
parenting that had been adapted by Kassis (2003) from the Parenting Style
Inventory developed by Krohne and Pulsack (1996). This subscale measures
youth’s perceptions of their parent’s behavior using a 4-point Likert scale
(range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely true’’).
To assess respondents’ experiences of teacher aggression we employed
a 4-item subscale (a ¼ .69) entitled, Verbally aggressive teacher behavior,
adapted by Kassis (2003) from the Teacher Aggression Inventory developed
by Krumm (1997), which gauges teachers’ verbal aggression toward stu-
dents, rated on a 4-point Likert scale (range ¼ ‘‘not true at all’’ to ‘‘completely
true’’).

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Means and standard deviations of all measures appear in Table 1. Nearly 23%
of the adolescents reported being physically abused by their parents and
 Laying Down the Family Burden 45

TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations of All Measures

Measure Mean SD

Resilience: Externalized=internalized
Physical aggression against peers 1.13 .30
Depression 2.08 .73
Family violence
Witnessing of physical spousal abuse 1.12 .44
Physical abuse by parents 1.13 .40
Protective factors
Individual protective factors
Self-acceptance 2.95 .62
Optimistic future view 3.06 .64
Emotional self-control 2.52 .67
Seeking help to avoid violence 2.81 .78
Social protective factors: Family, school
Parental supervision 2.86 .69
Close relation to teachers 2.89 .64
School climate 2.58 .74
Risk factors
Individual risky attitudes and substance misuse
Aggression-supportive beliefs 1.92 .80
Alcohol consumption 1.78 .75
Drug use 1.09 .36
Social risks: Peers, family, school
Indirect aggression against girls 1.27 .49
Indirect aggression against boys 1.49 .60
Inconsistent parenting 1.82 .66
Verbal aggressive teachers 1.41 .52

17.3% witnessed physical violence between their parents. Approximately

27% exhibited depressive tendencies and nearly 35% of the students
reported participating in physical violence against other adolescents. The
sex, country, migration, and socioeconomic distributions of family burden
and resilience will be discussed in the analysis results stages 1 and 2.

ANALYTIC STRATEGY
In order to analyze the effects of structural and procedural risk and protective
factors on resilience in adolescents who experience family violence (our sta-
ted aim), we conducted our statistical analyses in three stages: In the first and
second stage we defined the composite variables family burden and resili-
ence. In the third stage we first computed the average scores of the protective
and risk factors in the three specified family burden level groups to test if the
moderation of the family burden level is combined with different averages
for protective and risk factors. We conducted three logistic regression analy-
ses on the family burden level (low, middle, and high level of family viol-
ence), to identify procedural risk and protective factors as predictors of
resilience.
46 W. Kassis et al.

Results
STAGE 1: IDENTIFYING LEVELS OF FAMILY BURDEN AND TESTING THE EFFECTS OF THE
DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS, SEX, COUNTRY, MIGRATION, AND SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS

Of the 5,149 young people who participated in our research, 1,644 (31.9%)
reported carrying a family burden of violence experience. In total, nearly
every fourth respondent (23.0%) had been physically abused by his or her
parents and almost every sixth respondent (17.3%) had witnessed physical
spousal abuse. Consistent with the findings of (Herrenkohl et al., 2003; Sousa
et al., 2011; Yates et al., 2003), we detected a robust significant overlap
(r ¼ .475

) between the two reported family violence indicators.
To examine the family burden, all the respondents who reported family
violence experience scores of higher than ‘‘0’’—that is, they indicated they
were exposed to some form of family violence—were included in a subsam-
ple, family burden, (n ¼ 1,644). The z-standardized scores of this scale were
trichotomized into the groups, low level of family burden (n ¼ 644), middle
level of family burden (n ¼ 568), high level of family burden (n ¼ 432).
However, unlike Connell et al. (1994) and Cullen et al. (2008), we did
not find sex differences for exposure to family violence. The separation of
girls and boys into our three family burden groups did not prove to be
significant (Chi-square ¼ 5.285, df ¼ 3, N ¼ 5,149, p > .05.). Additionally,
although our data yielded significant country-specific differences for being
affected by family violence for girls (Chi-square ¼ 99.555, df ¼ 9, N ¼ 2,418,
p < .001.), and for boys (Chi-square ¼ 45.208, df ¼ 9, N ¼ 2,731, p < .001.),
these country differences should not be overly interpreted due to their low
Cramer’s V (girls: Cramer’s V ¼ 0.117; boys: Cramer’s V ¼ 0.074)2. The statisti-
cal differences that our data generated are likely mostly due to our large sam-
ples sizes and the contingency of Chi-square statistics to that sample size.
Overall, our central and most important finding is that regardless of sex,
country, socioeconomic and migration status, family violence seems to be a
very well distributed burden for a large number of the adolescents in our
sample (see Table 2).
Looking first at the differences in the variations by sex and migration-
status, we found that the distributions of the three family burden levels in all
four EU countries are not statistically significant. Secondly we found almost
no differences in socioeconomic status for the three family burden levels, with
only our Slovenian respondents with high socioeconomic status reporting a
low level of family burden. We therefore conclude, contrary to previous find-
ings (Aisenberg & Herrenkohl, 2008; Kaufman et al., 2008) that the distribution
of all three levels of family burden in all four countries is not dependent on
structural demographic factors. This leads us to suggest that at least in the
European context, the significance of these structural demographic indicators
may so far have been overstated as explanations for family violence.
 Laying Down the Family Burden 47

TABLE 2 Relation Between the Levels of Family Burden and the Demographic Factors, Sex,
Country, Migration, and Socioeconomic Status

Low level of family burden, n ¼ 644

Germany (n ¼ 420) Austria (n ¼ 71) Slovenia (n ¼ 68) Spain (n ¼ 85)

v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p

Sex 0.344 1 >.05 3.196 1 >.05 0.785 1 >.05 3.849 1 >.05

Migration 0.173 1 >.05 0.037 1 >.05 1.209 1 >.05 2.031 1 >.05
SES 4.304 2 >.05 4.790 2 >.05 9.595 2 < .01 0.880 2 >.05
(3 categories)

Middle level of family burden, n ¼ 568

Germany (n ¼ 368) Austria (n ¼ 68) Slovenia (n ¼ 51) Spain (n ¼ 81)

v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p
Sex 0.506 1 >.05 2.875 1 >.05 0.506 1 >.05 2.875 1 >.05
Migration 3.857 1 >.05 0.249 1 >.05 3.857 1 >.05 0.249 1 >.05
SES 2.112 2 >.05 1.649 2 >.05 2.112 2 >.05 1.649 2 >.05
(3 categories)

High level of family burden, n ¼ 432

Germany (n ¼ 286) Austria (n ¼ 39) Slovenia (n ¼ 56) Spain (n ¼ 51)

v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p v2 df p
Sex 0.954 1 >.05 1.414 1 >.05 2.828 1 >.05 2.949 1 >.05
Migration 0.007 1 >.05 1.918 1 >.05 1.494 1 >.05 0.373 1 >.05
SES 1.288 2 >.05 1.493 2 >.05 3.668 2 >.05 1.780 2 >.05
(3 categories)

STAGE 2: IDENTIFYING RESILIENT YOUTH AND TESTING THE EFFECTS ON RESILIENCE OF

THE DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS, SEX, COUNTRY, MIGRATION, AND
SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS

In order to identify the resilient youth in our sample we created a composite

resilience variable that included all participants’ self-reports about their use
of aggression and their depressive tendencies: The students who reported no
use of aggression and who additionally had depression scores below the
middle of the scale ‘‘depression’’ were coded as resilient (n ¼ 510, 31.0%
of the adolescents in the family burden sample). Students who reported
use of and=or an above middle of the scale tendency to depression (i.e., a
depression score range: 3 ¼ Rather true, 4 ¼ Completely true) were coded
as ‘‘nonresilient’’ (n ¼ 1,134, 69.0% of the adolescents in the sample).
This strategy of linking the aggression and depression tendencies in the
empirical sense, was also chosen because we found a strong relationship for
both sexes between the tendency toward depression and the use of physical
aggression against peers, girls: F(20, 757) ¼ 2,314, p ¼ .001, g2 ¼ 5.9%; boys:
F(22, 887) ¼ 2,806, p ¼ .001, g2 ¼ 6.7%, a relationship that has previously
48 W. Kassis et al.

been confirmed by Desjardins and Leadbeater (2011) who showed that the
connection between physical aggression and depression for both sexes is
very similar (note almost the same g2 of girls and boys).
The strong relationship between aggression and depression tendencies
for both sexes holds despite the significant sex differences for the use of
physical aggression and for depression such that: family violence is strongly
connected with physical aggression for both sexes: 62.7% of the boys and
38.0% of the girls who have experienced family violence are physically
aggressive, however more boys than girls who have been exposed to family
violence use aggression (Chi-square ¼ 99.245, df ¼ 1, n ¼ 1,644, p < .001.).
Family violence is also strongly connected with depression for both sexes,
with 33.7% of the boys and 47.6% of the girls who report having experienced
family violence reporting depression, however; more girls than boys who
have been exposed to family violence report experiencing depression
(Chi-square ¼ 32.607, df ¼ 1, n ¼ 1,644, p < .001.).
In the second analysis stage we identified those students in the family
burden sample, (n ¼ 1,644) who could be classified as resilient despite
experiencing family violence and tested to see if their classification could
be predicted by the sociodemographic predictors migration, country, and
sex. In 10 out of 16 cases the distributions of the sociodemographic predic-
tors were not significant (see Table 3). Furthermore, the Cramer’s V was
weak in all six significant distributions (0.062 to 0.249). We therefore con-
clude that the effects of sex, migration, and socioeconomic status are not
of central importance for the distribution of resilience. These findings and
our subsequent conclusion hold for both the aggregated family burden sam-
ple (n ¼ 1,644) and for the country-specific subsamples (see Table 3).

STAGE 3: LOGISTIC REGRESSION TO IDENTIFY PROCEDURAL PROTECTIVE AND RISK

PREDICTORS AS RESILIENCE CHARACTERISTICS

In the third analytic stage, three logistic regression analyses were performed
on the family-burden level, the moderator (low, middle, and high level of
family violence) calculated in stage one analysis, in order to identify the
resilience characteristics (Wu & Zumbo, 2008) of those in the family burden
sample (n ¼ 1,644).
Before conducting the logistic regressions, we computed the average
scores of the protective and risk factors in the three specified family burden
level groups (see Table 4). By doing that, we were able to see if the moder-
ation of the family burden level is combined with different averages for pro-
tective and risk factors in the three family burden conditions. We further
computed a Bonferroni post-hoc test in order to identify specific differences
between the three family burden levels as these related to the protective and
risk factors. The results of this variance analysis indicate that especially the
average scores of the risk factors (the post-hoc tests between all risk groups
 TABLE 3 Relation Between Resilience Status and the Demographic Factors, Sex, Country, Migration, and Socioeconomic Status

Family burden overall

sample (n ¼ 1,644) Germany (n ¼ 1,074) Austria (n ¼ 178) Slovenia (n ¼ 175) Spain (n ¼ 217)
2
2
2
2
2
v df p CV v df p CV v df p CV v df p CV v df p CV

49
Sex 11.84 1 <.01 .085 1.53 1 >.05 – 2.64 1 >.05 – 10.84 1 <.001 .249 4.23 1 <.05 .140
Migration 0.78 1 >.05 – 4.92 1 <.05 .068 0.45 1 >.05 – 1.71 1 >.05 – 6.89 1 <.01 .178
SES (3 categories) 6.24 2 <.05 .062 5.3 2 >.05 – 4.94 2 >.05 – 3.69 2 >.05 – 0.20 2 >.05 –
Country 2.68 3 >.05 –


Cramer’s V.
50 W. Kassis et al.

TABLE 4 Variance Analysis With Bonferroni Post-Hoc Test of the Procedural Protective and
Risk Factors in the Three Family Burden Level Groups

Family burden sample

(n ¼ 1,644) 1 ¼ Low 2 ¼ Middle 3 ¼ High
(n ¼ 644) (n ¼ 568) (n ¼ 432)
F p df g2 Av. Av. Av.

Protective factors
Individual protective factors
Self-acceptance 6.13 .002 2,1641 0.7% 2.883 2.81 2.741
Optimistic future view 13.03 .000 2,1641 1.6% 2.992,3 2.891,3 2.781,2
Emotional self-control 15.64 .000 2,1641 1.9% 2.452,3 2.331,3 2.221,2
Seeking help to avoid 4.57 .010 2,1641 0.6% 2.803 2.74 2.661
violence
Social protective factors: Family, school
Parental supervision 45.33 .000 2,1641 5.2% 2.802,3 2.541,3 2.421,2
Close relation to teachers 16.48 .000 2,1641 2.0% 2.892,3 2.741 2.661
School climate 6.76 .001 2,1641 0.8% 2.533 2.483 2.361,2
Risk factors
Individual risky attitudes and substance misuse
Aggression-supportive beliefs 23.02 .000 2,1641 2.7% 1.992,3 2.111,3 2.341,2
Alcohol consumption 31.40 .000 2,1641 3.7% 1.832,3 1.981,3 2.241,2
Drug use 29.20 .000 2,1641 3.4% 1.092,3 1.151,3 1.311,2
Social risks: Peers, family, school
Indirect aggressive against 30.79 .000 2,1641 3.6% 1.322,3 1.431,3 1.611,2
girls
Indirect aggressive against 26.48 .000 2,1641 3.1% 1.542,3 1.631,3 1.841,2
boys
Inconsistent parenting 48.84 .000 2,1641 5.6% 1.942,3 2.151,3 2.361,2
Verbal aggressive teachers 37.10 .000 2,1641 4.3% 1.422,3 1.571,3 1.731,2

Note. Superscript 1,2,3 indicate the significant Bonferroni post-hoc differences between the three
family-violence levels.

are significant) increase as family burden level increases. This finding is

additionally supported by the fact that the prediction strength (in g2) of the
risk factor differences on the three levels of family burden is much higher
(g2 ¼ 2.7% to g2 ¼ 5.6%) than the equivalences of the protective factors
(0.6% to 2.0%, and only one protective, factor parental supervision, has a
higher g2 ¼ 5.2%).
The central result here is that higher levels of family burden are strongly
correlated with fewer protective and significantly more risk factors. This cru-
cial finding supports not only the finding of comorbidity of risk factors on
higher family burden levels but also the parallel lack of protective factors.
The effects of this co-occurrence can be seen in the per level resilience rates:
42.1% in the low level of family burden, 27.6% in the middle level, and 19.0%
in the highest level of family burden (Chi-square ¼ 69.109, df ¼ 2, n ¼ 1,644,
p < .001).
Next, logistic regression was used to analyse the effects of family burden
level as a mediator and to determine protective and risk predictors as
 Laying Down the Family Burden 51

patterns on resilience. The logistic regression models were estimated in three

steps: In the first model, the effects of the individual and social protective fac-
tors were tested. In the second model, the effects of the individual and social
risk factors were separately analysed. In the third model, the protective and
the risk factors were included in order to test the overall predictive value of
these. Results are presented in Tables 5, 6, and 7.
The significance of our logistic regression results are first explained by the
prediction of the model strength and then by the significance of specific pro-
tective and risk resilience factors. For the low family burden condition (see
Table 5), the protective factors and risk factors explain an almost equivalent
part of the resilience prediction. However, for the middle and high family bur-
den conditions (see Tables 6 and 7) the prediction strength of the risk factors is
almost twice as the prediction strength of the protective factors. These findings
suggest that in order to promote resilience, controlling risks is a more effective
strategy than promoting protective factors, even though protective factors
still play a significant role for all three levels of family burden.
A closer look at the specific protective resilience factors in the overall
model (Model 3) indicates similarities between low and middle family bur-
den levels (see Tables 5 and 6) such that an optimistic future view, seeking
help to avoid violence, and a positive relationship with teachers are signifi-
cant protective predictors for both levels. The protective predictor that is stat-
istically significant only to the low family burden level is self-acceptance; and
the protective predictor that is statistically significant only for the middle
family burden level is emotional self-control.
The risk factors for low and middle family burden levels also have much
in common (see Tables 6 and 7). Indirect aggression against boys and alco-
hol misuse are significant risk predictors for both low and middle family bur-
den conditions. Additionally, for the low family burden level, inconsistent
parenting, aggression supportive beliefs, and drugs misuse are seen to be
additional risk predictors (see Table 5) while indirect aggression against girls
assists with predicting membership in the middle family burden level (see
Table 6).
Finally, for the high family burden level (see Table 7), only one protec-
tive factor, an optimistic future, and three additional risk factors: indirect
aggression against girls, verbally aggressive teachers and drugs misuse were
found assist with the prediction membership in this level.
We were able to rate the overall prediction strength (model 3) for all
three family burden levels as high (see Tables 5, 6, and 7): low level Cox
& Snell R2 ¼ 27.8%, middle level Cox & Snell R2 ¼ 30.7%, and high level
Cox & Snell R2 ¼ 28.2%. In combination with the very high rates of the overall
correct classification for the low family burden level (74.1%), the middle
family burden level (80.1%) and the high family burden level (86.1%) this
provides the necessary empirical reliability of a very reliable predictive
model.
 TABLE 5 Low Level of Family Burden: Logistic Regression for Identifying Procedural Protective and Risk Factors as Resilience Characteristics

Model 1: Protective factors Model 2: Risk factors Model 3: All factors

B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B)

Individual protective factors

Self-acceptance .17 .10 2.87 .84 f .33 .11 8.62

.71
Optimistic future view .15 .10 2.28 .85 .10 .11 .92 .89
Emotional self-control .70 .10 43.31


.49 .49 .11 17.92


.60
Seeking help to avoid violence .31 .10 9.74

.72 .30 .11 7.30

.74
Social protective factors: Family, school
Parental supervision .41 .10 14.93


.66 .18 .12 2.43 .83
Close relation to teachers .01 .10 .00 1.00 .23 .11 3.94
1.26
School climate .18 .09 3.70
.82 .14 .10 2.01 .86
Individual risky attitudes and substance misuse

52
Aggression-supportive beliefs .41 .10 15.53


1.51 .36 .11 9.85

1.44
Alcohol consumption .35 .11 10.36

1.43 .33 .12 7.97

1.40
Drug use .49 .20 6.09
1.64 .52 .20 6.41
1.69
Social risks: Peers, family, school
Indirect aggression against girls .11 .10 1.18 1.12 .02 .11 .06 1.02
Indirect aggression against boys .25 .12 4.49
1.29 .28 .13 4.66
1.32
Inconsistent parenting .55 .10 27.58


1.74 .28 .11 5.68
1.32
Verbal aggressive teachers .21 .12 3.02 1.23 .25 .14 3.28 1.29
Cox & Snell R2 18.9% 20.7% 27.8%
Nagelkerkes R2 25.4% 27.8% 37.3%
Overall correct prediction 69.4% 69.6% 74.1%
v2 134.67 149.10 209.51
df 7 7 14

Note. n ¼ 644.





p < .05.

p < .01. p < .001.
 TABLE 6 Middle Level of Family Burden: Logistic Regression for Identifying Procedural Protective and Risk Factors as Resilience Characteristics

Model 1: Protective factors Model 2: Risk factors Model 3: All factors

B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B)

Individual protective factors

Self-acceptance .14 .11 1.47 .86 .25 .13 3.49 .77
Optimistic future view .32 .11 8.08

.72 .49 .14 12.35


.61
Emotional self-control .54 .11 24.04


.58 .51 .13 15.23


.59
Seeking help to avoid violence .21 .10 4.36
.80 .33 .12 7.36

.71
Social protective factors: Family, school
Parental supervision .07 .10 .51 .92 .18 .12 2.14 1.20
Close relation to teachers .12 .09 1.62 .88 .25 .13 3.88
1.29
School climate .09 .10 .85 .90 .08 .13 .41 1.08
Individual risky attitudes and substance misuse

53
Aggression-supportive beliefs .15 .12 1.63 1.17 .13 .13 1.03 1.14
Alcohol consumption .25 .12 4.03
1.29 .26 .13 3.74
1.30
Drug use .33 .24 1.86 1.39 .43 .28 2.26 1.53
Social risks: Peers, family, school
Indirect aggression against girls .43 .14 9.57

1.55 .46 .14 9.90

1.58
Indirect aggression against boys 1.10 .19 32.97


3.01 1.25 .20 35.89


3.50
Inconsistent parenting .39 .11 12.75


1.48 .22 .13 2.92 1.25
Verbal aggressive teachers .19 .13 2.15 1.21 .22 .15 2.25 1.25
Cox & Snell R2 11.4% 23.6% 30.7%
Nagelkerkes R2 16.4% 34.1% 44.3%
Overall correct prediction 74.3% 78.0% 80.1%
v2 (14) 68.47 152.81 208.07
df 7 7 14

Note. n ¼ 568.





p < .05.

p < .01. p < .001.
 TABLE 7 High Level of Family Burden: Logistic Regression for Identifying Procedural Protective and Risk Factors as Resilience Characteristics

Model 1: Protective factors Model 2: Risk factors Model 3: All factors

B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B) B SE Wald Exp(B)

Individual protective factors

Self-acceptance .09 .14 .48 .90 .18 .16 1.15 .83
Optimistic future view .20 .14 2.02 .81 .11 .17 .47 .88
Emotional self-control .49 .14 11.47

.60 .42 .17 5.69
.65
Seeking help to avoid violence .24 .15 2.74 .78 .30 .17 3.20 .73
Social protective factors: Family, school
Parental supervision .42 .14 8.19

.65 .18 .17 1.06 .83
Close relation to teachers .48 .14 11.46

.61 .04 .18 .04 .96
School climate .10 .13 .69 .89 .11 .15 .55 1.12
Individual risky attitudes and substance misuse

54
Aggression-supportive beliefs .25 .17 2.16 1.28 .18 .18 .94 1.19
Alcohol consumption .32 .16 3.92
1.38 .27 .17 2.52 1.31
Drug use .73 .38 3.62
2.07 .80 .41 3.87
2.24
Social risks: Peers, family, school
Indirect aggression against girls .54 .19 7.90

1.72 .50 .20 6.25
1.65
Indirect aggression against boys .29 .20 2.15 1.34 .33 .21 2.43 1.39
Inconsistent parenting .40 .13 8.33

1.49 .22 .16 1.94 1.25
Verbal aggressive teachers .75 .20 13.95


2.12 .73 .21 11.31

2.08
Cox & Snell R2 14.1% 25.6% 28.2%
Nagelkerkes R2 22.7% 41.2% 45.4%
Overall correct prediction 80.8% 85.6% 86.1%
v2 65.62 127.66 143.20
df 7 7 14

Note. n ¼ 432.





p < .05.

p < .01. p < .001.
 Laying Down the Family Burden 55

DISCUSSION

As noted in our introduction, the main aim of this study was to examine the
relationship between exposure to family violence and known structural and
procedural protective and risk factors related to the development of
aggression and depression in young people. Included in our aim was an
investigation into how this exposure and the interplay of structural and pro-
cedural risk and protective factors can be used to understand resilience,
where resilience is understood as a condition that reflects both the use of
aggression and violence (Gilbert 2009; Hussey 2006; Kassis 2010; Kitzmann
2003; Yates 2003) and depressive symptoms (Dunn, 2011; Zinzow 2009).
Our study provided us with a rich data set to explore our questions.
Most importantly, we were concerned to find that in our four-country sam-
ple, every fourth participant reported being abused by a family member
and every sixth participant reported having witnessed violence between
his or her parents. And while we were encouraged to find that among these
young people, there were still many who exhibited resilience, this resilience
came with limitations.
Interestingly, counter to research conducted for the most part in the
United States where it has been persuasively shown that low socioeconomic
status (Loeber, Farrington, et al., 2008; Rebellon et al., 2009) and migration
(Murray et al., 2009; Pauwels & Svensson, 2009) are known factors that are
connected with higher family violence levels, and that this is true especially
for boys (Cullen et al., 2008; Kaufman et al., 2008) and where a clear connec-
tion between SES strain and violence in the family has been demonstrated
(Agnew, 2011) we found no such connection in our data.
Although we found no significant evidence that the structural factors that
we examined, (parents’ educational status, sex, and migration), had an impact
either on the level of family violence or the resilience experienced by the part-
icipants in our four EU country sample, we do not want to dismiss the impor-
tance of structural factors just yet. We contend that it is possible that other
structural factors, as yet not explored in the existing research, may have an
effect in the EU context; structural factors like the characteristics of country
specific social safety nets, access to health care, the availability of free
or low-cost social programs, the general level of social resources in the com-
munity and country, and the size of the income gap between rich and poor.
Hence, we suggest that future cross-national research on the structural factors
that underpin resilience would do well to include an investigation of the social
determinants of health (Marmot, Friel, Bell, Houweling, & Taylor, 2008) and
the social and income inequalities of the countries under study.
Still, our findings in all four country samples indicate clearly and reliably
that parental education levels, sex, and migration did not help us to select
those participants who had been exposed to lower or higher levels of family
violence, nor did these factors help us to distinguish for resilience. According
56 W. Kassis et al.

to our data, family violence is a well-distributed burden not buffered by

social standing or sex, a burden that directly and most potently affects resili-
ence outcomes, and a social issue that must be recognized as shared across
all levels of society and therefore dealt with accordingly
In our investigation of the effects of the family burden of violence, we
found that as with Kraemer et al. (2001), and Loeber, Slot, et al. (2008), the
magnitude of the effect of the family burden on resilience varies with the
three moderator levels low, middle, and high. We conclude therefore, that
this moderator can help us to specify the conditions under which changing
procedural effects can be detected (Agnew, 2011; Sampson & Wilson,
2011) and offers good utility for understanding resilience. As noted earlier,
we have found confirmation for some resilience-promoting protective fac-
tors, especially when the levels of family burden are at the low or middle
level. For both these levels, there is confirmation of the personal protective
factors of (a) maintaining an optimistic view of the future (previously found
by Dodge et al., 2006; Harter, 2006) and (b) seeking help to avoid violence.
Also helpful as protective factors at a low level of family burden are self-
acceptance (Donnellan et al., 2005; Greenwald et al., 2002) and a positive
relationship with teachers (Byrne & Lurigio, 2008; Desjardins & Leadbeater,
2011; Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010), and at a middle level of family burden,
emotional self-control seems to help. But only one protective factor holds
for all levels of family burden: an optimistic view of the future, also found
by Harter (2006) and Dodge et al. (2006). In our study, what stands out is that
as levels of family burden increase, the number of effective protective factors
decrease and the number of risk factors increase. We see this as suggesting
that high levels of family violence trump protective effects and therefore
require our primary attention.
As with protective factors, the risk factors for low and middle levels of
family burden also have much in common. Indirect aggression against boys
and alcohol misuse are significant risk predictors for both low and middle
family burden conditions. Additionally, for the low-family-burden level,
inconsistent parenting (Phythian et al., 2008), aggression-supportive beliefs,
and misuse of drugs, are seen to be additional risk predictors, while indirect
aggression against girls assists with predicting membership in the middle-
family-burden level. For the low-family-burden condition, the protective
and risk factors explain an almost equivalent part of resilience. However,
for the middle- and high-family-burden conditions the prediction strength
of the risk factors is almost twice that of the prediction strength of the protec-
tive factors.
Our findings suggest that in order to promote resilience, controlling for
risks is doubly important, even though protective factors still play a signifi-
cant role for all three levels of family burden. Exposure to aggressive parents
and verbally aggressive teachers can create conditions where even an
optimistic outlook is not enough to preserve resilience.
 Laying Down the Family Burden 57

Young people need positive, nonaggressive, nonviolent adults in their

lives. Adolescents, no matter their culture, are typically engaged in a kind
of rite of passage during which they are still more dependent on their
immediate relationships, especially those with adults (Artz, Scott, & Anglin,
1998). In our study, those young people who were carrying low and middle
levels of a family-violence burden were supported in their resilience by being
able to seek help to avoid violence and by being able to have a positive
relationship with their teachers; in other words, they were resilient in large
part because they had access to helpful adults. Our finding that access to
helpful adults—such as teachers with whom a positive relationship is
possible—supports the work of Desjardins and Leadbeater (2011), and
suggests a way out of the cycle of family violence, especially when we take
into account the potent contribution to nonresilience of verbal aggression by
teachers. Ultimately, we conclude that the level of family burden (Finkelhor
et al., 2007), and the accumulation of risk factors (Loeber, Slot, et al., 2008)
are central to resilience status and should therefore be the prime targets
for prevention and intervention.

METHODOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional character of this study implies that we make no conclu-

sions about causalities. An additional limitation of our study is the fact that
we have only one information source, the adolescents who were the respon-
dents to our survey. However, recent research (Desjardins & Leadbeater,
2011; Evans, Davies, & DiLillo, 2008) shows that youth self-reports are gen-
erally quite valid, so we believe that we can safely assume that the problems
due to an absence of other data sources are minor.
A further limitation is the quite low but still acceptable Cronbach’s alpha
of some of our subscales. This is a common problem in international studies
with questionnaires in different languages (Enzmann et al., 2010; Junger-Tas
et al., 2010). To succeed in the specific sub-scale computations of the three
different languages of our study (German, Slovenian, and Spanish), in four
countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) and in the overall reli-
ability computations is overall still a remarkable result.
Because of the sample size, we decided not to work at the subsample
level, so the specific role of poly-victimization (Finkelhor et al., 2007) could
not be examined. As well, a deeper qualitative understanding of the specific
family situations in which violence occurs that examines the levels of resili-
ence that we suggest would is extremely relevant. These kinds of insights are
likely to be best achieved by case studies (Artz, 1998). Finally, we believe that
we need to replicate our model across several more EU countries and in the
English speaking industrialized world in order to test its validity, and hope
that in the meantime, we have made a good beginning with our revision
of existing approaches to understanding resilience.
58 W. Kassis et al.

NOTES

1. The principal investigator on the team is Dr. Wassilis Kassis, University of Osnabrueck, Germany.
The co-investigators are Dr. Sabine Bohne, University of Osnabrueck, Germany; Mag. Elli Scambor, Dr.
Christian Scambor, and Lisa Mittischeck, Men’s Counseling Center and Research Institute, Graz, Austria;
Dipl. pol Mart Busche and Dr. Ralf Puchert, Dissens e.V., Berlin, Germany; Dr. Alfons Romero and Dr.
Paco Abril, University of Girona, Spain; Dr. Majda Hrženjak and Dr. Ziva Humer, Peace Institute, Ljubljana,
Slovenia.
2. The main purpose of Cramer’s V is to report the importance of a prediction of an association
between two nominal variables. If the proportion of variability is high it provides a high prediction by
the model. The measure and its interpretation are very similar to the Pearson correlation coefficient with
ranges from 1 to þ1, while 0 indicates no relationship. Coefficients higher than 0.30 are counted as fairly
predictive for the analyses made. Chi-square values are directly proportional to the sample size. And
as Knoke, Bohrnstedt, & Potter Mee (2002, p. 147) are stating: ‘‘This sensitivity of v2 to sample size
in a crosstab underscores the important difference between statistical significance and substantive
importance.’’

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