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Perilla, J.L., Bakeman, R. & Norris, F.H. (1994). Culture and Domestic Violence: The Ecology of Abused Latinas. Violence and Victims, 9(4), (pp.325-338).

This study examined the predictors of domestic violence within a sample of 60 immigrant Latinas, of whom 30 had sought assistance for abuse and 30 had sought other family services. Hypotheses were derived from several frameworks relevant to understanding abuse—intrapsychic (learned helplessness), interpersonal (family violence), and feminist theory. Findings related to the specific formulations were subsequently combined into a model of abuse in which the mutuality of communication within the couple mediates the effects of husband's intoxication and environmental stressors on the occurrence/severity of abuse. The study points out the inadequacy of relying on any one existing theory and supports the idea of taking an ecological approach to the study of abuse in specific populations.

Perilla, J.L. (1999). Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Issue: The Case of Immigrant Latinos. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 21(2), (pp.107-133).

Using the writings of the late social psychologist Ignacio Martin-Baro and other Latin American and Latino social scientists as a framework, this article examines the issue of domestic violence from a human rights perspective. As suggested by these writers, the antecedents, dynamics, and effects of domestic abuse are explored bringing to bear the historical, philosophical, cultural, social, spiritual, and political realities of Latino immigrants in the United States. From this ecological perspective, universal and culture-specific elements of this phenomenon are considered. Finally, Freire's idea of 'concientización' (consciousness) is used to delineate levels of awareness and responsibility necessary to break the intergenerational transmission of domestic violence in this population.

©2003. National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence. All Rights Reserved.

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