Category: Chapter 6

Kevin Miller, Schools Are Still Underreporting Sexual Harassment and Assault, AAUW Education and Training (Nov. 2, 2018)

“Students should be able to go to school free from experiencing sexual harassment or violence. That’s the promise made over 45 years ago by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited sex discrimination in any educational institution or program receiving federal funding.

Unfortunately, despite Title IX’s best efforts, and the additional protections afforded to students by the federal Clery Act and other state and local laws, sexual harassment and violence still interfere with the education of too many students. Even more alarming is that many schools make it difficult for students to come forward and that schools fail to properly report incidents of sexual harassment and violence when they occur. As a result, many students remain negatively impacted by unlawful sex discrimination in schools.”

Nan Stein, Sexual Harassment in School: The Public Performance of Gendered Violence, 65 Harv. Ed. Rev. 145 (1995).

“In this article, Nan Stein argues that sexual harassment in schools is a form of gendered violence that often happens in the public arena. She presents the narratives of girls and boys about their experience of sexual harassment in schools and finds parallels with cases documented in court records and depositions. While highly publicized lawsuits and civil rights cases may have increased public awareness of the issue, inconsistent findings have sent educators mixed messages about ways of dealing with peer-to-peer sexual harassment. The antecedents of harassment, she suggest, are found in teasing and bullying, behaviors tacitly accepted by parents and teachers. Stein makes a case for deliberate adult intervention and the inclusion of a curriculum in schools that builds awareness of these issues.”

Campbell Leaper & Christia Spears Brown, Perceived Experiences with Sexism Among Adolescent Girls, 79 Child Dev. 685 (2008).

“This study investigated predictors of adolescent girls’ experiences with sexism and feminism. Girls (N = 600; M = 15.1 years, range = 12-18), of varied socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, completed surveys of personal experiences with sexual harassment, academic sexism (regarding science, math, and computer technology), and athletics. Most girls reported sexual harassment (90%), academic sexism (52%), and athletic sexism (76%) at least once, with likelihood increasing with age. Socialization influences and individual factors, however, influenced likelihood of all three forms of sexism. Specifically, learning about feminism and gender-conformity pressures were linked to higher perceptions of sexism. Furthermore, girls’ social gender identity (i.e., perceived gender typicality and gender-role contentedness) and gender-egalitarian attitudes were related to perceived sexism.”