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 c
ampus 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 c
ampus 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.”
The kids were surveyed about their thoughts about rude sexual comments, mailing compromising photos, spreading sex rumors, touching, pulling clothing, and forced kissing. The survey was a hit, Stein says. “It gave them a vocabulary, allowing them to name things that otherwise they might not know how to talk about.” There were interesting gender differences in how the teens responded to the program. For instance, most of the boys failed to bring consent letters from home, while girls paid closer attention and seemed to get more from the lessons, she says.
Students were asked to distinguish between flirting and hurting and were asked to discuss whether the way a girl dresses justifies harassment, whether boys can be sexually harassed by girls, and what someone should do when they are being harassed. Students also practiced writing letters to harassers.
Asking what kids considered a “big deal” and “not a big deal,” the researchers learned that certain forms of egregious violence were seen as not serious due to their prevalence. The issue of 18-year-olds having sex with 14-year-olds, for example, generated much discussion. Students thought it was okay as long as consent was given, and were deeply surprised to learn that by definition, kids under age cannot give consent.
Nor were students aware of the significance of sexual harassment. “Students were surprised to learn that sexual harassment was a legal matter, a violation of Title IX Civil Rights laws, which schools had to enforce,” Stein says. Simple messages from school administrators that harassment would not be tolerated on campus were more effective than more value-laden messages in which sexual harassment was simply deemed socially destructive, she adds.
Sample Interventions
Taylor and Stein had students examine how incidents of sexual harassment impacted their feelings about their physical environment by having them create maps. They then offered students ways to think about asserting more control of their physical space through boundary-setting exercises. And they created a campus-wide visual educational campaign with large posters.
Setting boundaries. In classroom-based interventions, students discussed personal boundaries in terms of defining space and conferring rights: the right to feel safe and have one’s personal space respected. They explored the meaning of rules and laws, and then wrote boundary agreements that included incident reports, complaints, and contractual responses.
“Kids liked the boundary agreements. We learned they preferred writing about stressful interactions to telling adults about them or confronting their tormentor. The kids were also intrigued by the idea of personal space and that one had a right to it. They added to that concept by suggesting personal space should be measured going forward and backward to include stalkers,” Stein adds.
Mapping. To make students more self-conscious about safety, researchers asked them to color-code safe and unsafe areas on campus maps as well as on routes to and from home. The maps were then organized according to gender and status hierarchy around age in order to get a more complete picture of where different groups of students felt safe and unsafe. “The kids were very engaged in this,” Stein says. “We learned that girls in particular avoid certain areas at certain times. Stairwells were deemed especially unsafe.” School administrators reviewed the findings and made appropriate changes to supervision and traffic patterns on campus.
Posters. A building-wide poster campaign on dating violence included large cartoon and photographic posters that offered pointers on recognizing relationship abuse, with messages such as: “He hits on girls/He hits girls.” Or, “He pays attention to her/He pays attention to her every move.” The kids particularly liked and identified with the photos of teen couples. Significantly, no posters were defaced in the course of the study.
The release of this study comes at a time of heightened attention to issues of school-based bullying. Stein notes that because school administrators worry about lawsuits, they tend to define sexual harassment as mutually teasing behavior rather than seeing it as a civil rights issue. “They call it bullying, because bullying, although against school rules, is not a federal crime,” she says. However, she adds, bullying does not accurately describe behavior with a sexual component, including the harassment of gay students. More serious than just kids teasing kids, it is about gender-based power and control, she explains.
“Schools need to know they can be sued for ignoring this kind of behavior,” Stein says. “They need to recognize the best way to protect themselves is to offer educational programs.”
Colleen Gillard is a freelance writer and contributor to the Harvard Education Letter.
Students were asked to distinguish between flirting and hurting and were asked to discuss whether the way a girl dresses justifies harassment, whether boys can be sexually harassed by girls, and what someone should do when they are being harassed. Students also practiced writing letters to harassers.
Asking what kids considered a “big deal” and “not a big deal,” the researchers learned that certain forms of egregious violence were seen as not serious due to their prevalence. The issue of 18-year-olds having sex with 14-year-olds, for example, generated much discussion. Students thought it was okay as long as consent was given, and were deeply surprised to learn that by definition, kids under age cannot give consent.
Nor were students aware of the significance of sexual harassment. “Students were surprised to learn that sexual harassment was a legal matter, a violation of Title IX Civil Rights laws, which schools had to enforce,” Stein says. Simple messages from school administrators that harassment would not be tolerated on campus were more effective than more value-laden messages in which sexual harassment was simply deemed socially destructive, she adds.
Sample Interventions
Taylor and Stein had students examine how incidents of sexual harassment impacted their feelings about their physical environment by having them create maps. They then offered students ways to think about asserting more control of their physical space through boundary-setting exercises. And they created a campus-wide visual educational campaign with large posters.
Setting boundaries. In classroom-based interventions, students discussed personal boundaries in terms of defining space and conferring rights: the right to feel safe and have one’s personal space respected. They explored the meaning of rules and laws, and then wrote boundary agreements that included incident reports, complaints, and contractual responses.
“Kids liked the boundary agreements. We learned they preferred writing about stressful interactions to telling adults about them or confronting their tormentor. The kids were also intrigued by the idea of personal space and that one had a right to it. They added to that concept by suggesting personal space should be measured going forward and backward to include stalkers,” Stein adds.
Mapping. To make students more self-conscious about safety, researchers asked them to color-code safe and unsafe areas on campus maps as well as on routes to and from home. The maps were then organized according to gender and status hierarchy around age in order to get a more complete picture of where different groups of students felt safe and unsafe. “The kids were very engaged in this,” Stein says. “We learned that girls in particular avoid certain areas at certain times. Stairwells were deemed especially unsafe.” School administrators reviewed the findings and made appropriate changes to supervision and traffic patterns on campus.
Posters. A building-wide poster campaign on dating violence included large cartoon and photographic posters that offered pointers on recognizing relationship abuse, with messages such as: “He hits on girls/He hits girls.” Or, “He pays attention to her/He pays attention to her every move.” The kids particularly liked and identified with the photos of teen couples. Significantly, no posters were defaced in the course of the study.
The release of this study comes at a time of heightened attention to issues of school-based bullying. Stein notes that because school administrators worry about lawsuits, they tend to define sexual harassment as mutually teasing behavior rather than seeing it as a civil rights issue. “They call it bullying, because bullying, although against school rules, is not a federal crime,” she says. However, she adds, bullying does not accurately describe behavior with a sexual component, including the harassment of gay students. More serious than just kids teasing kids, it is about gender-based power and control, she explains.
“Schools need to know they can be sued for ignoring this kind of behavior,” Stein says. “They need to recognize the best way to protect themselves is to offer educational programs.”
Colleen Gillard is a freelance writer and contributor to the Harvard Education Letter.
