2000/2001 PCERII Funded Research Abstract

This is a study of violence against immigrant women in Canada using large-scale data collected for the first time as part of Cycle 13 of the General Social Survey. These data included more than 25,000 respondents. The specific objectives of the study are to advance our understanding of violence experienced by immigrant women and to address the special circumstances surrounding violence against immigrant women in Canada. The theoretical perspective for the study is a synthesized framework of violence theories within the larger context of Nested Ecological Theory. This is a multidimensional level theory that encompasses factors at the individual, family, institutional and cultural levels. The analysis of the data will be conducted in two stages. In the first stage, descriptive statistics will be provided to document the prevalence of violence against immigrant women. At the second stage, a rigorous test of the different levels of factors will be performed using logistic multiple regression. We hope that the analysis will not only help us to understand and explain the phenomenon of violence against immigrant women, but also that it will help to formulate badly needed theoretical perspectives for the study of violence against women. More importantly, the study is intended to give specific directions and guidelines for formulating effective policies to address and control the violence experienced by immigrant women in particular and women in general.