This roundtable will discuss how to best apply meta-theoretical frameworks to advance theoretical sophistication in varied areas of violence scholarship. The social ecological model and the theory of triadic influence are two heuristic frameworks available for attempting to integrate the vast bodies of research on violence. The roundtable will present examples of the application of these two heuristic frameworks to the following domains of violence scholarship: community violence, child maltreatment, sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence.

The roundtable will commence with a brief synopsis of the two meta-theoretical frameworks to be discussed. Then, four examples of the way in which these frameworks have been used in integrating the research literature in violence scholarship will be presented. The presenters are four doctoral students in an NIMH funded Interdisciplinary Training Program on Violence and Mental Health. Bridging social work and the social sciences, these four presenters draw from the disciplines of psychology, education, & sociology. The first presenter will examine the use of the social ecological model in accounting for the mental health effects of exposure to community violence, using the framework to integrate the current literature and to identify future directions. The second presenter will use the social ecological model to link two disparate research literatures: child maltreatment and children’s learning, emotional, and behavior disabilities. The third presenter will address the way the theory of planned behavior – a subtheory of the theory of triadic influence – can link the distal and proximal factors of sexual perpetrating, demonstrating the use of meta-theoretical frameworks to create links within a literature. The fourth presenter will examine how scholarship on intimate partner violence fits in both the social ecological model and the theory of triadic influence, demonstrating the need for such research to address how different system levels interact.

Closing comments will be provided by the social work faculty co-director of the NIMH Traineeship to summarize the way in which these examples move beyond the taxonomical use of heuristic frameworks to that of actually integrating scholarship. All people present at the roundtable will be invited to actively discuss the use of these frameworks in their own fields. Discussion questions will be posed in order to further understanding about the use of these heuristic frameworks.

This roundtable will specifically address the implications for social work policy and practice of applying meta-theoretical frameworks to our understanding of violence, providing a space for social work researchers and practitioners who work on the many areas of violence prevention and intervention to come together to talk about the meta-theoretical frameworks that link the scholarship together.