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Leading Researchers From Across North America Share Findings At Symposium on Girlhood Aggression Examining Violent Girls -- Risk Factors & Treatment
The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Earlscourt Child and Family Centre, a children's mental health centre in Toronto, and York University's LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution. It will be held at Mt. Sinai Hospital, 18th Floor Auditorium, 600 University Avenue, Toronto.
Some of the panel discussions, which will reveal results from research in the field, include: "Girls in the Juvenile Justice System; Risk Factors and Clinical Implications", "Girls Who Bully", "To Die For: Why Adolescent Girls use Violence", and "Maternal Conduct Disorder and the Risk for the Next Generation."
"This conference is one of the first to bring together leading researchers to discuss the current understanding of how girls' aggression develops and how to treat aggressive girls," said Prof. Debra Pepler, Director of York University's LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution. "Although girls' aggression is not as prevalent as boys' aggression, we need to focus on it just as much. After all, these girls become the mothers of the next generation. With this conference, we hope to highlight what is required to support the healthy development of girls with aggressive behaviour problems."
Said Kenneth Goldberg, Executive Director, Earlscourt Child and Family Centre: "High personal and social costs are associated with young girls growing up angry. Without the necessary support systems, these young girls are on a trajectory leading to juvenile delinquency, high school drop-out and teen pregnancy. Too many of these girls left without help will become women burdened with financial, interpersonal or psychiatric difficulties or may even become involved in criminal behaviour."
Please see the attached conference agenda, visit http://www.earlscourt.on.ca/symp.html, or contact:
Kenneth Goldberg
Prof. Debra Pepler
Ken Turriff
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1999
MORNING SESSION (9:00 a.m. ñ 12:00 p.m.)
9:00 a.m.
A developmental perspective on the problems and potential risks faced by aggressive girls across the lifespan will be provided. The risks that girls face in relationships including: parent-child interactions, sibling interactions, peer relations, and romantic relations will be considered, as well as implications for future research, interventions and social policy. Although a smaller number of girls than boys accelerate to severe levels of aggression and violence in adulthood, their trajectories are of grave concern. Aggressive girls become mothers of the next generation and a potential pivotal point in the inter-generational transmission of violence.
10:00 a.m.
An overview of findings from studies of relational aggression in dyadic contexts will be provided with a particular focus on distinctive manifestations of these behaviours unique to particular contexts, associations with social-psychological adjustment, and implications for intervention.
11:00 a.m.
Individual interviews were carried out with girls aged six to 11 admitted to a treatment facility for girlhood aggression. In addition to these girls, their parents were also individually interviewed. This qualitative data was then analysed investigating risk and protective factors associated with aggression in girls. Data from this study will be presented here.
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 p.m. ñ 4:30 p.m.)
1:30 p.m.
Empirical findings presented here illustrate how girls' expression of socially aggressive behaviours and boys' expression of physically aggressive behaviours serve different functions and have different impacts on development.
2:30 p.m.
An intervention study that targets girls who have histories of serious offending will be presented along with data on characteristics and risk factors of the participants. Implications for intervention will be discussed.
3:30 p.m.
Presented will be a review of the findings from the Concordia Longitudinal Study that relate specifically to the long term sequelae that are likely to occur when girls are aggressive in childhood. Also the implications of these patterns for inter- generational transfer of risk for aggression (and other forms of risk) to offspring will be briefly addressed. Finally, discussed will be these findings in light of specific social issues and policy implications regarding prevention of violence.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1999
MORNING SESSSION (9:00 a.m. ñ 12:00 p.m.)
9:00 a.m.
How do girls experience bullying and why do they engage in these behaviours? Participants of the Sheffield Anti-Bullying Project were interviewed on their perceptions of bullying. These responses will be presented in comparison to survey results from the Sheffield project and observational data from the Toronto project.
10:00 a.m.
The Pittsburgh Youth Study PYS is a longitudinal, community-based study of delinquency in boys. Data were gathered on the sisters of these boys including rates of conduct problems. Descriptive data are provided that demonstrate the types of conduct problems manifest in girls. Additionally, family and environmental correlates of conduct problems in girls are identified. The importance of gender and age on the types of behaviours and correlates of conduct problems are discussed.
11:00 a.m.
Using gender appropriate ways of estimating the prevalence of physical aggression we were able to demonstrate that it does not differ across sexes between the ages of 2 and 4, whereas it does between five and 11 years of age with boys being more likely that girls to show a high propensity to manifest physically aggressive behaviours.
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.)
1:30 p.m.
Data will be presented from two samples. The first is a random sample of over 2000 infants aged five months, representative of the population of Quebec; the second is a sample of over 200 adolescent mothers. The early environment of families with mothers who have conduct disorder will be compared to those without conduct disorder. Implications for prevention of the inter-generational transmission of conduct disorder will be discussed.
2:30 p.m.
This presentation will focus on adolescent girls' explanations and justifications for their use of violence.
3:30 p.m.
The Earlscourt Girls Connection is a gender specific program for girls exhibiting aggressive and antisocial behaviours. The program's mission is for girls to stay in school and out of trouble. To assess whether these outcomes are being operationalized, an evaluation of the program is underway. Outcome evaluation data will be presented.
4:30 p.m. |
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