The news that nearly half of students in grades 7-12 have experienced sexual harassment drew headlines around the nation last month, based on an online survey of nearly 2,000 students released by the American Association of University Women.
Now a separate study has shown that building-wide posters, student-drawn maps of campus sexual harassment “danger zones,” and student-created “personal boundary agreements” can go a long way to reducing peer-to-peer sexual harassment and dating violence—at little expense.
The randomized experiment conducted in 30 New York City middle schools between 2008-2010 is a first-in-the-nation study on whether sexual harassment educational programs targeting such a young age group (6th and 7th graders) can reduce incidents of harassment and violence. The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, compared the effects of education interventions made at the building level, the classroom level, or both, with a control group where no interventions were made. Researchers surveyed and interviewed 2,655 students across 117 classrooms before the beginning of the study, immediately after, and six months later.
Reduction in sexual harassment was greatest when students received both classroom-based and building-wide interventions, according to Bruce Taylor, senior scientist from NORC at the University of Chicago, who coauthored the study with Nan Stein, senior research scientist at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. “These efforts reduced harassment by as much as 34 percent at the six-month review,” Taylor notes. “In terms of violence reduction, though, the building-alone posters, maps, and boundary agreements, were able to reduce dating violence as much as 50 percent. These measures also seemed to encourage more by-standers to intervene.”
Stein and Taylor say they were surprised by the power of building-wide messaging. Campus-based messages about sexual harassment and dating violence succeed, the two believe, because students regard these messages as expressions of community-based values.
“To be effective, the message must be embedded in school culture, institutionalized, and supported by school administrators through the enforcement of school rules,” Stein says. “We learned though, that by adding classroom lessons, by giving kids greater understanding of the law, of the harm caused by this behavior, as well as the vocabulary to talk about it, you can change even more behavior and lessen the number of incidents later on.”
A Difficult Group to Study
”There is a lot about youth relationships that we don’t understand well,” Stein notes. “This is a difficult group to study. Teachers know students sexually harass each other, but don’t know what to do about it. Parents are sensitive—although I think if they knew its prevalence they would want something done. And principals are afraid of introducing the issue, even when they know they have a problem. Many principals worried that it was too mature a topic—even though that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur. And we know that when kids learn they can get away with aggression in public, they are more likely to act it out in private,” she says.
Schoolyard sexual aggression, ranging from comments, looks, and gestures, to grabbing, pinching, and forced touching, has been documented for decades. It is most often instigated by boys, with girls usually the target, and is so commonplace that as many as 80 to 90 percent of adolescent girls and 50 to 80 percent of boys report being sexually harassed in school, according to a 2009 study in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
As for dating violence and sexual assault, this same study showed that approximately half of all adolescent girls and 15 percent of boys have been sexual assaulted, mostly by an acquaintance. (The difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault is that harassment is unwelcome sexual behavior that creates a hostile environment, while assault is coerced physical sexual contact.)
While such destructive behavior has an immediate impact on student attendance, ability to learn, mental health, and self-esteem, sexual harassment in middle school is also a precursor to dating violence and sexual assault in high school and beyond, Taylor says. “The importance of this work is that we have scientific evidence that early intervention lessens later violence.”
From Sex Ed to School-Wide Approaches
There are a lot of problems with how these issues were addressed in the past, says Stein, who has written classroom curriculum guides on bullying as well as sexual harassment. “We now know what doesn’t work: talking about it in sex ed or health classes. Kids just dismiss these classes as feminist turf. We also know that talking about it in terms of “healthy or unhealthy” relationships doesn’t work—kids find it too paternalistic. It is much better taught school-wide. Then it’s the entire school saying we don’t tolerate it.”
Now a separate study has shown that building-wide posters, student-drawn maps of campus sexual harassment “danger zones,” and student-created “personal boundary agreements” can go a long way to reducing peer-to-peer sexual harassment and dating violence—at little expense.
The randomized experiment conducted in 30 New York City middle schools between 2008-2010 is a first-in-the-nation study on whether sexual harassment educational programs targeting such a young age group (6th and 7th graders) can reduce incidents of harassment and violence. The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, compared the effects of education interventions made at the building level, the classroom level, or both, with a control group where no interventions were made. Researchers surveyed and interviewed 2,655 students across 117 classrooms before the beginning of the study, immediately after, and six months later.
Reduction in sexual harassment was greatest when students received both classroom-based and building-wide interventions, according to Bruce Taylor, senior scientist from NORC at the University of Chicago, who coauthored the study with Nan Stein, senior research scientist at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. “These efforts reduced harassment by as much as 34 percent at the six-month review,” Taylor notes. “In terms of violence reduction, though, the building-alone posters, maps, and boundary agreements, were able to reduce dating violence as much as 50 percent. These measures also seemed to encourage more by-standers to intervene.”
Stein and Taylor say they were surprised by the power of building-wide messaging. Campus-based messages about sexual harassment and dating violence succeed, the two believe, because students regard these messages as expressions of community-based values.
“To be effective, the message must be embedded in school culture, institutionalized, and supported by school administrators through the enforcement of school rules,” Stein says. “We learned though, that by adding classroom lessons, by giving kids greater understanding of the law, of the harm caused by this behavior, as well as the vocabulary to talk about it, you can change even more behavior and lessen the number of incidents later on.”
A Difficult Group to Study
”There is a lot about youth relationships that we don’t understand well,” Stein notes. “This is a difficult group to study. Teachers know students sexually harass each other, but don’t know what to do about it. Parents are sensitive—although I think if they knew its prevalence they would want something done. And principals are afraid of introducing the issue, even when they know they have a problem. Many principals worried that it was too mature a topic—even though that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur. And we know that when kids learn they can get away with aggression in public, they are more likely to act it out in private,” she says.
Schoolyard sexual aggression, ranging from comments, looks, and gestures, to grabbing, pinching, and forced touching, has been documented for decades. It is most often instigated by boys, with girls usually the target, and is so commonplace that as many as 80 to 90 percent of adolescent girls and 50 to 80 percent of boys report being sexually harassed in school, according to a 2009 study in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
As for dating violence and sexual assault, this same study showed that approximately half of all adolescent girls and 15 percent of boys have been sexual assaulted, mostly by an acquaintance. (The difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault is that harassment is unwelcome sexual behavior that creates a hostile environment, while assault is coerced physical sexual contact.)
While such destructive behavior has an immediate impact on student attendance, ability to learn, mental health, and self-esteem, sexual harassment in middle school is also a precursor to dating violence and sexual assault in high school and beyond, Taylor says. “The importance of this work is that we have scientific evidence that early intervention lessens later violence.”
From Sex Ed to School-Wide Approaches
There are a lot of problems with how these issues were addressed in the past, says Stein, who has written classroom curriculum guides on bullying as well as sexual harassment. “We now know what doesn’t work: talking about it in sex ed or health classes. Kids just dismiss these classes as feminist turf. We also know that talking about it in terms of “healthy or unhealthy” relationships doesn’t work—kids find it too paternalistic. It is much better taught school-wide. Then it’s the entire school saying we don’t tolerate it.”
