The From Boys to Men Project set out to address the following questions:

• Why do some boys grow up to be domestic abuse perpetrators when others do not?
• What can be done to prevent more boys becoming perpetrators?
• How can we change the attitudes and feelings that give rise to abusive tendencies in young men?
• What kinds of interventions do young men at risk of becoming violent need?
• How do they feel about the interventions to which their families are subjected?

Using a mixed methods approach, the research sought to gather data on the following:

• The range of attitudes towards domestic abuse that can be detected among young men and the degree of difference between these and the attitudes to be found among young women.
• The experiences – of victimization, witnessing and perpetrating violence – that impinge upon young men’s receptivity to anti-violence messages such as those conveyed in school-based education programmes. Both the prevalence and nature of these experiences were explored.
• The situational and biographical contingencies through which violence is defined, often contradictorily, by young men as acceptable within certain circumstances but not others.
• The sorts of interventions young people are exposed to when domestic abuse is detected in their family homes and the impact of these on their capacities to cope with the challenges new relationships present.