Mapping the contours of teen dating violence: An ecologically-informed grounded theory approach to understanding romantic relationship development among Black girls

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Teen dating violence (TDV) victimization is associated with depression, disordered eating, acquiring sexually transmitted infections, as well as experiencing unplanned pregnancy, substance use, suicidal ideation, injury, and death. Despite a higher likelihood of exposure to TDV for young Black women, few studies have addressed healthy and normative romantic relationship development among Black adolescent girls as a way to address TDV and reduce unhealthy relationship dynamics. Yet, to understand healthy romantic relationship formation, it is necessary to consider the interplay between Black girls’ lived experiences and structural factors that may undermine the quality of their relationships, such as negative racialized and gendered stereotypes. In addition, cultural assets, the individual and collective resources that enable ethnocultural groups to maintain positive identity beliefs and health outcomes over time, may offer important insight regarding the development of Black adolescent girls’ healthy relationships. The current proposal will use semi-structured interviews with young Black women aged 15-21 to understand what occurs during their romantic relationships; how the relationships are initiated, external and structural influences, internal and external assets of the individual girl, milestones during relationships, how and why the relationships end. Codes and themes derived from the analysis of data will be used to develop new theory of how romantic relationships develop for Black girls during adolescence. Specifically, journey maps (aim 1) will describe the trajectory of these relationships from initiation to disillusion. Situational analysis (aim 2) will identify the numerous human, nonhuman, sociocultural, and structural influences on these relationships. Finally, counternarrative analysis (aim 3) will bring to the light the important resilience markers for this vulnerable group to inform and improve TDV prevention programming. Taken together, this data driven analysis will create an overarching “theoretical story” of the external and structural influences on romantic relationships for Black girls as well as the cultural assets they garner to sustain or end their relationships. Most importantly, this research will serve as a foundation for the development of our team’s planned R01 submission to develop and test an intervention to reduce TDV among Black youth.