Conference Agenda

The continuing cases of sexual assault among young people globally are an issue of concern. In view of this, the conception of affirmative sexual consent has emerged; that is, it is no longer necessary to say "no" but rather a "yes" is required for sexual consent to be considered to have taken place. However, the "only yes means yes" approach to affirmative consent continues to leave many victims of sexual violence unprotected as such "yes" can be coerced. This is why the conception of sexual consent based on communicative acts (Vidu & Tomás-Martinez, 2019) is the one that most guarantees the protection of potential victims by taking into account not only Physical Power (physical force) and Institutional Power (in unequal positions) but also Interactive Power.

Interactive Power includes positions of power beyond the relationships mediated by institutions. That is, it takes into account the situation of vulnerability or power according to the context in which interactions take place (Flecha et al., 2020).

With regard to victimisation in relation to sexual consent issues, not only the peer pressure to initiate certain sexual approaches plays an essential role, especially at the beginning of their affective-sexual relationships, which many studies and young people themselves have already mentioned, (Widman et al., 2016) but especially, the coercive discourse (Racionero-Plaza et al., 2022). This pressure to initiate sexual relations faced by young people is a global problem (Macleod & Jearey-Graham, 2016; Chan & Chan, 2013).

One of the keys identified by the scientific literature in numerous and diverse contexts for overcoming or preventing situations of all types of violence, including sexual violence, is the response and intervention by the people who witness it (Coker et al., 2015). However, despite the research consensus on the effectiveness of bystander intervention, the scientific literature has also shown that, in many cases, the witnesses who take a stand for the victim suffer Isolating Gender Violence as a consequence (IGV). IGV is violence against people who take a stand with the victims with the intention of leaving the victims isolated, thus preventing them from overcoming their victimisation (Vidu et al., 2021). The scientific literature has evidenced how Isolating Gender Violence (IGV) occurs in any type of relationship and in a diversity of people and contexts.

Support movements and solidarity networks created to protect victims have been successful in transforming many victims into survivors precisely because of this approach. The MeToo University movement was generated precisely in a Spanish university context in which many victims of sexual violence by faculty or students were unprotected and silenced by the institution for fear of reprisals (Joanpere et al., 2022).

Within the framework of the CONSENT project (PID2019-110466RB-I00), from speech acts to communicative acts, fieldwork has been carried out with young people aged 18 to 25 to find out, among other issues, who have taken a stand to support them or others in these cases. Despite their initial unfamiliarity with some of the scientific concepts, by sharing with participants the scientific evidence they were able to identify IGV situations they had experienced or witnessed.

The two main findings of the research were that, when faced with situations of coercion that could affect consent (1) they found few protective reactions to victims from witnesses and that when they did, they were often retaliated against. (2) Some of the young people interviewed expressed having support strategies and help signals, either beforehand or on the spot, to protect themselves and their friends from situations of coercion

Educational institutions, both formal and non-formal, are contexts where violence against LGBTI+ youth is a worrisome and ever-present reality (FRA, 2020; EU Open Data Portal, 2018). The negative consequences for the victims include academic and health issues, with a higher risk of absenteeism, school failure, dropping out, depression, or suicidal ideation at its worst (Dessel et al., 2017; Elipe et al., 2018; Miravet et al., 2018; Orue & Calvete, 2018). Research has also highlighted the negative impact on the whole environment, which becomes hostile and unsafe.

Among the educational actions that have both a reactive and preventive dimension against violence, the bystander intervention approach is a common element that has been widely investigated for its positive impact: that is, involving all bystanders to step up in different ways to look out for the victim, break the silence and create safer spaces where violence is hindered by an atmosphere of zero-tolerance against it. Among the most researched educational programs and strategies, the Green Dot Bystander Intervention Programme (Coker et al., 2015) and the Dialogic Model of violence prevention and resolution (Duque & Teixido, 2016) are highlighted for accumulating some of the latest evidence on violence prevention: for instance, they include constant training to all agents of the community, and they understand the relevance leaders’ perspective for initiating change. Overall, these programs start by training educators, from teachers to staff or families and volunteers. Adults, once trained, can initiate the strategies that involve the youth they are directly involved with, as well as the whole institution and all agents.

Considering that knowledge, the Up4Diversity project has been a 2-year European project, funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Programme whose main aim was to empower young people and youth workers to become active upstanders in the eradication of violence against LGBTI+ youth. Among the most relevant outcomes were the literature reviews that led to the creation of training materials and a training workshop for educators with all the scientific knowledge gained. Furthermore, the project launched from its beginning a European online Network of educators that met six times during the project funding to learn and discuss the main evidence that could help them implement bystander intervention actions in their diverse realities. People from different countries and educational contexts joined the various masterclasses and meetings, two of which took place in the Mid-term and the Final project’s Conference, in September 2021 and July 2022, respectively.

As one of all projects’ goals is measuring its social impact, the Consortium designed data collection techniques to answer the question: Does diversity of educators who engage in dialogue around evidence-based knowledge on violence prevention empower them to improve or start implementing actions that will help their institution and the youth that are there?

Data collected through 160 questionnaires and 5 interviews with a communicative approach suggest that educators regain confidence in training as a way to improve the education they provide to ensure safer spaces for everyone; moreover, the dialogic and egalitarian learning atmosphere is crucial in their sense of belonging and therefore contributing to the network. Last, they are motivated to put into action different strategies learned in the network and the project. The main implication drawn from this research is the recreation of networks of diverse people who interact in a dialogical way around evidence-based educational actions.

This research studies the couple relationships in adolescents and the behaviours within them. A couple relationship is a sentimental bond of a romantic type that unites two people of the same or different gender (Pérez and Gardey, 2021). The concept of romantic love is strongly underpinned by a whole series of myths that are culturally shared and transmitted through the various channels of socialisation (Foucault, 2006; Ferrer and Bosch, 2013). Romantic love myths are the set of socially shared beliefs about the "true nature" of love and are often fictitious, absurd, misleading, irrational and impossible to fulfil (Yela, 2003). Assuming the romantic love model and the associated myths may facilitate the violence relationships (Repullo, 2011). Distorted beliefs about love and violence in relationships are associated with a greater likelihood of being victims or aggressors (Jiménez, 2021; Lara and Gómez-Urrutia, 2019). Most adolescents identify violence in their intimate partner relationships and consider it a normal process (Garrido and Barceló, 2019). On the other hand, there are studies that show that people with low self-esteem have a greater internalisation of romantic beliefs, which favours or maintains intimate partner violence and relationships based on control (Bisquert et al. 2019). Building healthy self-esteem protects and makes acceptance of violence or harm by others less likely (André, 2006).

There is a need for robust education strategies to address the problem. This research adapts Lara and Providell's (2020) programme to promote healthy relationships. The aim of this study is to evaluate the adapted programme, which addresses the myths of romantic love, the acceptance and normalisation of violence in young people and its relationship to self-esteem. We hypothesise that the programme will work and therefore, the intervention will decrease the acceptance of myths and violence, and increase self-esteem, promoting healthy relationships. This is a quasi-experimental study with a control and experimental group, with pretest and posttest.

The participants in the study were 112 adolescent students from three secondary schools in southern Spain. Their ages ranged from 12 to 16 years old, with a mean age of 13.41 (M=13.41; SD=1.266).

Six interventions were carried out in each of the centres, each lasting 60 minutes. The evaluation instrument used was a questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic data, the scale on Myths of Romantic Love and Acceptance of Violence by Lara and Providell (2020) and the Self-Esteem Scale by Rosenberg (1965) adapted to Spanish by Echeburúa (1995). The intervention lasted 2 months.

The results show statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups, with the experimental group obtaining the highest scores on the scales applied in Acceptance of the Myths of Romantic Love (Z=-4.24, p=<.001), and in Acceptance of Violence (Z=-2.673, p=.008). In contrast, the paired samples t-test for Self-Esteem (t=.088, p=.930) was not significant. Therefore, the starting hypothesis is partially fulfilled, the programme works by decreasing the acceptance of romantic love myths and the acceptance of violence, but does not increase self-esteem.

It is concluded that it can be applied as an educational strategy that facilitates the prevention of violence in an effective way with little time cost, allowing the promotion of well-being and discouraging violence in adolescent couples.