Using Data and Quantitative Methods to Understand Domestic Abuse
A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "Family Studies".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2027
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Research into domestic abuse has traditionally been qualitative in nature. The extant literature provides rich context in relation to the lived experiences of victims/survivors of domestic abuse and also responses to domestic abuse. The dearth of quantitative research is largely due to two interrelated issues—a lack of suitable data and well-founded beliefs that any form of data is not capable of providing valid, reliable or indeed helpful insights into domestic abuse. The gap in knowledge based on quantitative research and the extent to which it can be filled must be considered in the context of what might be termed an epistemological turn in social science (see, for example, Kitchin, 2014). This turn is part of the big data revolution (Kitchin, 2014). In many Western democracies over the last 20 years or so, structured, large-scale data has become far more prevalent and its utility more powerful. Related to this phenomenon is the notion that both outside and within the fields of academia and policy-making, stakeholders have become more amenable to this type of data as a source of knowledge. The evidence base underlying official policy and practice is often heavily influenced by, or rather relies on, large-scale data. So, consumption of, demand for, and attitudes towards social statistics have changed.
Against this backdrop, and shaped by the context provided by qualitative research, quantitative research into domestic abuse is blossoming. This Special Issue of Social Sciences presents current research that uses quantitative data to understand, at scale, perpetration and victimisation of, and criminal justice responses to domestic abuse.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Measurement of domestic abuse;
- Domestic abuse data;
- Perpetrators of domestic abuse;
- Quantitative methods for analysing data on domestic abuse.
Reference:
Kitchin, Rob. The data revolution: Big data, open data, data infrastructures and their consequences. Sage, 2014.
Dr. Les Humphreys
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- domestic abuse
- data
- victimization
- perpetration
- responses to domestic abuse
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