아동 성학대에 대한 신화와 고정관념에 관한 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the adolescents' attitudes toward child sexual abuse. Because the public attitudes are influenced by social and cultural factors, the review of the attitudes regarding child sexual abuse can provide meaningful guidelines and implications for preventing child sexual abuses. For this study, 200 students attending high school and college participated in the group survey and the instrument, "Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale" developed by Collings, was used to measure social attitudes toward child sexual abuse. According to the results, respondents' overall attitudes toward child sexual abuse were placed between negative and positive attitudes. However, respondents revealed the strong negative myths and stereotypes of child sexual abuse in specific situations. In terms of the three factors (blame diffusion, denial of abusiveness, and restrictive abuse stereotypes) consisting "Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale", respondents showed that they have different levels of attitudes for each factor. Also, high school students and male students are more likely to have negative myths and stereotypes of child sexual abuse than college students and female students. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated the variables of education level and gender as the most important predictors in explaining students' attitudes toward child sexual abuse. Findings of the study suggest that emphasis on education and public attention of child sexual abuse can be effective strategies to reduce negative myths and stereotypes of child sexual abuse for adolescents.