Characteristics of sexual harassment across locations among U.S. undergraduate students
Jan-Louw Kotzé1, Patricia A Frazier2
1Department of Psychology, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.
Objective:
This study examined how the characteristics of specific instances of sexual harassment differed across four common college locations, building on previous research by using a larger and more diverse sample.
Participants:
1,164 undergraduate students, who were predominantly straight (58%), White (48%), cisgender (85%), and women (50%) from 408 U.S. higher education institutions.
Methods:
Participants provided contextual information about common sexually-harassing experiences from the last seven days in an online survey.
Results:
Students reported 4,362 harassing incidents (M = 3.79 per student) during the previous seven days; 59.8% of students reported any harassment. Results of multilevel models (N = 2,225 most upsetting incidents) indicated that similar students were harassed across locations, but experienced harassment from different people and in different ways.
Conclusions:
Findings can support schools and local, state, and federal governments in collaborative efforts to develop more comprehensive sexual harassment interventions tailored for specific contexts.
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