Factors Influencing Prevention Educators’ Decisions About the Teen Dating Violence Prevention Curriculum Used With Middle and High School Students

Abstract

Teen dating violence (TDV) prevention programs are frequently delivered in middle and high schools to educate adolescents on the dynamics of abuse and provide them with tools to build healthy relationships. There is substantial variation in the length, focus, and content of these programs, and the factors that inform the decision of educators on what curriculums to use are unknown. To explore this issue, our research team conducted interviews with N = 20 sexual assault/domestic violence prevention educators across the Midwestern United States. We used reflexive thematic analysis to identify critical themes for recognizing which factors inform the curricular decision of prevention educators. We identified four primary themes: exposure to curriculum, what students need, organizational values, and external constraints. Collectively, these themes indicate that prevention educators have many choices to make concerning to prevention content and strategy and juggle multiple factors when making those decisions. Findings highlight the need to incorporate the practice-based knowledge of prevention educators in curriculum design and include prevention educators in the development of state TDV prevention policy.