Contributions of the Communicative Methodology to Gender Violence Prevention in Educational Research

The present paper analyzes how the Communicative Methodology (CM) in research with teen girls and following the international ethical standards thoroughly, can contribute to overcoming a central problem such as gender violence among teens. The Free-Teen-Desire Marie Curie project funded by the EC analyzes new methodological approaches under the communicative paradigm for that purpose. The project focuses on the potential of dialogue using language of desire to question the change in desire towards violent hegemonic masculinities that some girls present (CREA, 2010-2012; Gómez, 2015). One of the premises of the CM is to include all voices, especially traditionally excluded voices, in egalitarian dialogue. In this dialogue the research participants contribute with context-specific knowledge and the researcher with the scientific knowledge related to the issue. Therewith the standpoint of teen girls from diverse social backgrounds and their interpretation of gender violence can be obtained tackling the mistaken perception that this phenomenon is linked to social class, ethnic or religious backgrounds. The joint reflection on the evidences and the social reality of the participants in relation to gender violence and the trend of attraction towards violence among the participant and the researcher opens up a possibility for changing the reality. Therefore the research seeks to analyze the influence of using language of desire to facilitate this change in attraction towards violent hegemonic masculinities. The communicative methodology and the egalitarian dialogue with teen girls provides a space in which language of desire comes up to discuss gender violence and attraction towards violent men and facilitate a change in their desire. The paper concludes with main contributions of the CM to responsible social and educational research on gender violence prevention among adolescents preventing any negative outcomes for research participants or vulnerable groups.