The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships has published a briefing on young people’s attitudes about violence. The project examined the views of 11 and 12 year olds in Glasgow primary schools. The key points are:

• Young people can and did speak confidently and articulately on a range of related topics.
• Young people defined ‘real’ violence as physical acts done by men that had legal consequences. As a consequence much of the violence they experienced or perpetrated was minimised, normalised and regarded as ‘unreal’.
• Young people subscribed to naturalised definitions of masculinity to explain (rather that question) why men were violent
• Young people justified men’s violence against women using gender stereotypes and a rigid understanding of adult relationships framed by heterosexuality and marriage
• Young girls had ambition and felt, presently, there were few restrictions to achieving their goals. They saw this as changing dramatically when they were married and had children.