Overview
This project uses new analysis of 2021 Victorian National Community Attitudes Survey (NCAS) data to explore two research themes:
- What can the survey data tell us about how violence-supportive attitudes are formed?
- Which specific violence-supportive attitudes might have the biggest impact on prevention if we’re able to improve them?
Findings against each question are presented in two ways:
- A technical paper, which goes into detail about methods used, conceptual framing, findings and discussion.
- A companion brief, which provides an overview of our findings and their implications for prevention policy, practice and future research directions.
Background
The NCAS is conducted every four years by ANROWS and is one of the most important sources of evidence we have for understanding progress in primary prevention across Australia.
The NCAS lets us see what is happening nationally and in each state and territory by measuring how well communities understand what violence against women is, attitudes towards violence against women and attitudes towards gender inequality.
The rigorous analysis conducted by ANROWS means that we have a reliable picture of how attitudes shift every four years in Victoria. But there are always many research questions that we can investigate with a comprehensive dataset like the NCAS that might help us understand even more.
Respect Victoria wanted to find out what further insights we could uncover if we used different theoretical frameworks and statistical methods, applied to the standard ANROWS items and scales.
We partnered with ANROWS to get a 'boosted' or bigger than normal sample of NCAS participants in Victoria during 2021 data collection. When a survey sample is bigger, researchers can use more complex analytic methods that might not be as reliable with a smaller dataset. With the additional 1,500 responses commissioned by Respect Victoria, ANROWS were able to include perspectives from 6,143 Victorians in the 2021 NCAS.
With the help of the Social Research Centre and ANROWS, we scoped and designed studies to explore research questions and themes that are especially relevant for understanding primary prevention in Victoria.
How do violence-supportive attitudes relate to and reinforce each other?
What we did
We explored how different attitudes measured by the NCAS are connected. We started by looking at ANROWS’ validated NCAS scales, or the groupings of survey questions that together are used to measure a broad concept, and focused on the following four areas to consider how they relate to each other:
- attitudes towards gender inequality
- understanding and recognition of violence against women
- acknowledgement that violence is a problem locally
- attitudes that minimise, excuse or support violence against women.
What we found
Attitudes towards gender inequality had the strongest link with violence-supportive attitudes. Respondents who endorsed gender inequality were also more likely to minimise, excuse, and condone violence against women. This confirms findings from other studies, including those that inform Change the story.
We also found that higher levels of understanding violence, and higher acknowledgement that violence is a local issue, were linked with less minimising, excusing, or condoning violence against women.
Respondents who recognised a broader range of behaviours that constitute violence against women, and those who agreed that violence against women is a problem where they live, tended to reject violence-supportive attitudes.
These findings are discussed in the technical paper and companion brief, including their implications for primary prevention in Victoria. For example, if gendered violence is not seen as an immediate problem for people in their community, they are less likely to see it as an urgent issue deserving of attention and action. This suggests that primary prevention initiatives like community mobilisation and education across all life stages and cohorts, remain critical components in ending gendered violence.
Which attitudes towards violence against women might have the biggest preventative impact if we’re able to change them?
What we did
This analysis looked at individual questions that sit underneath the multi-item NCAS scales, to consider which attitudes and beliefs were:
- common or contested in Victoria
- different between men, women, and respondents of other genders
- associated with broader attitudes towards violence against women, gender inequality and understanding of violence.
What we found
Most Victorians rejected overtly harmful beliefs. However, attitudes like believing women will falsely accuse men of sexual assault, or minimising women’s experiences of violence, remained relatively common.
People who believe that men should have more authority than women (in the home, in the workplace, in society) were closely linked with broader gender-inequitable attitudes about the power and autonomy of men and women. We also found inconsistent recognition of non-physical forms of abuse across the Victorian community.
The findings highlight that there are some attitudes measured by the NCAS that have been more resistant to change than others in Victoria. These insights can be used for design, implementation and monitoring of primary prevention efforts.
Targeting these attitudes and beliefs specifically might therefore have a stronger impact on our overall progress towards preventing gendered violence.
