Pathways from Parental Exposure to Violence to Problems in Early Child Development: A Focus on Low and Middle-income Countries

After I complete the MPhil, I would like to continue on to a PhD and conduct research to understand how parental exposure to violence can lead to emotional and behavioural problems in early childhood in Ecuador. I would apply questionnaires to 200 mothers of children between 3 and 4 years old in the city of Cuenca and collect information regarding exposure to intimate partner violence, attitudes towards violence, and the child's levels of anxiety, anger, social skills and callous-unemotional traits. The results obtained in this research would be used to conduct further research and elaborate prevention policies, helping to eliminate violence against children in Ecuador. As part of the MPhil, I would like to conduct research that would facilitate the previously mentioned project. It could be for example a smaller study with the same variables, or a secondary data analysis that could help determine which are the most important variables that need to be measured in Ecuador.