Abstract
The aim of this study was to enhance the understanding of young girls’ experiences of peer sexual harassment in elementary school and of normalizing processes of school-related sexualized violence. Six focus group interviews with girls in Grade 1 through 6 were carried out in an elementary school in the northern part of Sweden. A content analyses showed that young girls experienced verbal, nonverbal, and sexual assault behaviors at school. Sexual harassment as a concealed phenomenon and manifest within a romantic discourse were themes found in the analysis. A conclusion is that schools have to acknowledge behaviors related to sexual harassment as a potential problem even in young ages and develop methods to approach the subject also for this age group.
Introduction
Since the late 1980s, research on peer sexual harassment in schools has increased (Dahinten, 2003; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Larkin, 1994; Stein, 2008; Witkowska & Gillander Gådin, 2005). In spite of the acknowledgement, less attention has been paid to peer sexual harassment in primary and intermediate schools, that is, in Grades 1 through 6 (pupils aged about 7 to 12). 1
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) study reported on experiences of sexual harassment of pupils in Grades 8 through 11 (ages 13-17), and one finding was that 32% had been harassed in sixth grade or earlier and 6% experienced sexual harassment before Grade 3 (AAUW, 1993). However, this indicates that more pupils are involved apart from those who are victimized, either as perpetrators or as bystanders.
Both boys and girls are exposed to sexual harassment, but according to Dahinten (2003) it has more devastating consequences for girls due to qualitatively different harassment experiences. Murnen and Smolak (2000), who have studied boys and girls in Grade 3 and Grade 6, found that girls report more fear than boys in relation to cross-gender situations of sexual harassment, and it is related to negative self-esteem and body image for girls but not boys.
A focus group study of 11-to-16-year-old girls (Berman, McKenna, Arnold, Taylor, & MacQuarrie, 2000) found a pervasive experience of different forms of violence in the girls’ lives, which resulted in different negative outcomes such as fear, intimidation, decreased self-worth, and isolation.
If sexual harassment is frequent, and at the same time it is seen as something inevitable and is never discussed as a problem at school, then there is a risk that the behavior can become normalized (Larkin, 1994; Robinson, 2005), that is, expected as a part of everyday life at school. Normalization of sexual harassment can also imply that the limits for accepted behavior have been displaced and that there is a risk of desensitization (Gillander Gådin, Weiner & Ahlgren, 2011. There are also researchers who claim that the presence of sexual harassment in school, with adults and others watching without interfering, can increase the risk of gender-based violence later in life, as a consequence of a normalizing process (Brown, Chesney-Lind, & Stein, 2007). A study of Australian boys concludes that harassment is a source of normalized pleasure and gratification for the boys (Kenway, Willis, Blackmore, & Rennie, 1997). There is a risk of normalization of sexual harassment among secondary school pupils and it is crucial to pay attention to risk behavior in earlier ages.
The Swedish discrimination act defines sexual harassment as conduct of sexual nature that violates someone’s dignity (The Swedish Government Offices, 2008). The definition is vague but is interpreted in this article as unwanted/unwelcomed behaviors of a sexual nature that interfere with the pupils’ right to equal educational opportunity. Sexual harassment is also viewed as being on a continuum of gendered violence (Berman et al., 2000) but also related to bullying, which likewise is an indication of asymmetric power relationships between pupils (Stein, 1995).
Gender is an important dimension in relation to social structures in society which influences power relationships, division of labor, allocation of resources, symbols, and the social construction of masculinities and femininities (Connell, 2002). For girls, the conventional social structure increases the risk of sexism and gender-based violence, economic dependence, and lower status in society in general (Van Roosmalen, 2000) and a struggle to develop a femininity appropriate enough to fit in the cultural expectations of being a girl (Davies, 1989). According to Chambers, Tincknell, and Van Loon (2004), femininity involves developing the ability to decode and to manage male desires in heterosexual romantic relationships. It is also suggested that girls and young women are socialized to expect gender-based violence in their lives (Berman et al., 2000).
Even though sexual harassment is a relatively common phenomenon in secondary school, and even though puberty takes place during the same period, the perpetration of sexual harassment cannot be excused as a biologically determined behavior manifested during a time of hormonal development. Collinson and Hearn (2005) and Fineran and Bennett (1999), among others, assert that sexual harassment is not about sexuality but about violence and power. Chambers et al. (2004) find that pupils aged 12 to 15 use verbal sexual bullying as a key instrument of peer regulation of teenage sexual identities. They further claim that the definition of sexual harassment is too narrow and instead should be seen as a set of practices embedded in the everyday collective culture of teenagers which regulates teenage sexual identities. Heterosexuality (as well as power and subordination) is closely related to the construction of femininities and masculinities (Connell, 2002; Tolman, Spencer, Porche, & Rosen-Reynoso, 2003), and it is thus likely that the behaviors related to gender identity start before teenagers struggle with their sexual identity. The construction of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality starts earlier than puberty and it is “taken up” through the negotiation of possible practices related to gender identity development. Gender performance is related to regulatory norms of gender as well as a process where different meanings of gender are made possible (Butler, 1990).
School prevention programs and interventions have largely overlooked the problem of sexual harassment among young pupils, but the present study will show examples of experiences among young girls in a Swedish elementary school and argue for such a focus. Prevention of peer sexual harassment in schools requires understanding its early onset and the scale of the behaviors displayed, even if they can be more highly developed among pupils in older ages.
The aim of this study was to enhance the understanding of young girls’ experiences of peer sexual harassment in elementary school and of normalizing processes of school-related sexualized violence.
Method
Participants
The participants were pupils in a Swedish elementary school in Grades 1 through 6, that is, 7-to-12-year-olds. Six focus group interviews with girls in Grades 1 through 6 were carried out in an elementary school in the north of Sweden.
First three focus groups were conducted and then there was a follow-up about 5 months later with about the same girls. The study was designed in this way as it was a part of a school health promotion project with the aim to evaluate effects on empowerment and genuine participation for all pupils at the school.
The focus groups consisted of four to six girls in each group. The girls were divided into three age groups: Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 and 4, and Grades 5 and 6. This composition was due to a school organization where the classes included pupils in two grades. Participation in the focus groups was voluntary; however, when there were too many volunteers, the teachers had to choose the participants. The school in which the informants were located is relatively small, with about 150 pupils, including 6-year-old children attending a preschool class. The school is situated about 10 km from a Swedish town of about 96,000 inhabitants. The catchment area can be defined as relatively disadvantaged with a high rate of families moving in and out, a substantial proportion of low-income families and a high proportion of children with divorced parents compared with other schools in the municipality.
Procedure
The focus group interviews were conducted in smaller rooms for group activities at the school during school hours, each taking 30 to 60 min. Participants were asked to speak one at a time and discuss all the themes in turn, particularly to enable everyone to have the opportunity to speak, and to react to the comments of others. The pupils were informed that participation was voluntary and that they could leave at any time. The pupils who participated had written consent from their parents and all were guaranteed anonymity in the presentation of the findings. No parent or pupil refused to participate. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Specific questions asked during the interviews were as follows: (a) What factors are important for you to feel well at school? (b) What factors can decrease your well-being at school? (c) What would you like to change at your school to increase your well-being?
The same themes and questions were asked of all groups regardless of age, but the pupils’ responses directed the subsequent questions that went into greater depth.
Bullying and violence at school were topics all groups mentioned as problematic, but behavior related to sexual harassment was not discussed among the girls until it was introduced as a subject by the interviewer (the author).
However, as soon as she showed that she was aware of the phenomenon and that it was an accepted topic to talk about, it was like opening the floodgates for some of the girls. First the interviewer asked if the girls had experiences of being called denigrating words like w****, c***, and similar words. In all groups, there were girls who had experienced sexual harassment or knew someone else in the school who had been called those derogatory words. When the discussion about verbal harassment ended, the interviewer asked about other behavior related to sexual harassment and mentioned things such as such as grabbing and pinching. Even here, the interviewer had to show that she was aware of the phenomenon before the girls felt that they could talk about it.
Introducing a potentially sensitive topic such as sexual harassment needs an increased awareness of power relationships within the group. The interviewer made an effort to see if a participant seemed to feel uncomfortable or under pressure and in that case redirect the discussion. The fact that the interviewer met the same girls twice also gave the opportunity to find out if the discussions had affected the girls in a negative way. However, the only reactions from the girls were positive and one group of girls spontaneously told the interviewer that they had appreciated the opportunity to talk about something they never had discussed before. The pupils were also provided contact details of the interviewer so that they could get in touch with her if they wished, although no one did.
The study was approved by the ethics committee at Umeå University as being in accordance with ethical standards.
The Analysis
A qualitative content analysis was performed according to Graneheim and Lundman (2004).
To obtain a comprehensive picture, all interviews were read through several times and reflected upon. Text concerning sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence was extracted and brought together into one text, which constituted the unit of analysis. Two content areas were identified for further analysis: (a) forms of sexual harassment and (b) consequences for the girls after exposure to sexual harassment. Meaning units were identified that corresponded to these contents. These meaning units were condensed, abstracted, labeled with a code, and categorized. This part of the analysis constitutes the manifest content. The text was then read through several times with the purpose to identify themes, that is, to identify phenomena that ran through the data and that were at a more interpretative level (Morse, 2008). The interpretation was formulated as two themes developed from the reading of the text: (a) a concealed phenomenon and (b) a romantic discourse. The themes are seen as threads of meaning that go through the categories and can increase the understanding of the categories’ occurrence. Figure 1 shows examples of condensed meaning units, subthemes, and a theme in the analysis process.
Examples of condensed meaning units, subthemes, and a theme in the analysis process
Results
The result section starts with a presentation of the two categories “Experiences of different forms of behaviors related to sexual harassment” and “Consequences for the girls,” followed by the two themes “Sexual harassment as a concealed phenomenon” and “A romantic discourse.”
Experiences of Different Forms of Sexual Harassment
The analysis showed that the girls were exposed to several different forms of behavior related to sexual harassment, such as verbal, nonverbal, and sexual assault behavior.
Verbal behavior
Girls in all grades talked about experiences of verbal harassment such as being called w****, c***, and other four-letter words. In all groups of girls, they had shared the same experiences that some boys sometimes harassed some girls in that way. “A boy in the class calls a girl in the class ‘w****’ and ‘c***’ all the time” (Girl, Grade 3-4). Sexualized joking, expressed by a girl as “Perverted jokes, … well, not a joke for me” can also be a problem, exemplified with a boy who asked other pupils if they had “a c*** around their head” (hinting at how babies are born).
Nonverbal behavior
An example of a nonverbal display was the story of some boys, and also some girls, who had gestured “f*** you” with their fingers at some of the 6-year-old children in the preschool, which the girls found very upsetting.
All school children had access to a computer, at least at school but most of them also at home. Many of the pupils seemed to have contact with their classmates on the school Intranet when they were home after school, and then they were at risk of being harassed through cyberspace. Girls in Grade 5 had experiences of receiving pornographic pictures and being harassed in other ways. Some of the older girls had also been in contact with (presumably) older boys on the Internet who asked to have sex with them.
Sexual assault
Older girls told of 6-year-old boys who had not only called them “goddamn queer” but also pawed them between their legs. A girl reported an experience where a boy had taken a field hockey stick and inserted it between her legs as she walked to the dining hall. A more upsetting experience (judged from the way the girls talked about it) was the story of a boy who had pawed girls in Grades 5 and 6 in various ways, such as “there is a guy who paws J a lot. Once he was peeping under K’s shirt, and touched J on the bottom and touched her breasts, and those things are disgusting. He squeezed J’s breasts; these things are really unpleasant.”
Having a romantic relationship with a boy in the class also put a girl in Grade 5 in a situation of sexual assault. “When I was together with him, he pawed me a lot between my legs, even though I didn’t want to.”
A girl in Grade 3 told of a situation when she had her trousers pulled down by a group of boys when she was in Grade 2.
Consequences
The consequences of being harassed, as described by the girls, ranged from “I don’t care” to psychological effects such as being sad, shy, and afraid and reluctant to go to school. Some of the experiences seemed to have long-lasting consequences for the girls.
Girls in Grades 1 and 2 talked about being cross about it, being sad, and about not wanting the boys to say things like that. In Grades 5 and 6, a girl said that she becomes afraid and shy and that she seeks protection among others. Even if physical violence caused harm, girls could talk about the long-term consequences of words as something that hurt even more.
Consequences for girls in Grades 5 and 6 who were harassed by 6-year-olds who had grabbed them between their legs and called them queer were not comparable to a situation with harassment from older boys. They were more astonished and confused that such young boys could do such things.
Being exposed to sexual harassment thus had different consequences in different contexts. One girl said, “Some [boys] don’t do it that often, then you don’t think so much about it, but when some do it, then it sort of gets stored in a locker in your brain.” Another girl filled in: “What happened to me is something I still remember, and it was a month ago.” There was also a girl who said that she thought going to school was dreadful: “I think, every morning like this, I will wait to go to school because [a boy] will say a lot of things . . .”
Girls in Grades 3 and 4 talked about experiences that happened when they were in the second grade. A group of boys from first, second, and third grade had pulled down a girl’s trousers: “I will never forget it, even if it was my friend [and not me that was harassed].”
The above quotations show that most situations were upsetting and had negative consequences for the girls, but some contexts, such as being harassed by very young boys or being just one girl among the rest, did not have the same negative impact.
Themes
Underlying meanings in the text are formed in two themes: (a) sexual harassment as a concealed phenomenon and (b) sexual harassment in a romantic discourse.
Sexual harassment as a concealed phenomenon
The girls in Grades 5 and 6 said that it was difficult to talk about experiences of behaviors related to sexual harassment. This could concern the fear that their parents would contact school or the fact that a parent would be shocked. A girl in Grade 5 thought that her mother would find it inconceivable, “that it is impossible at the intermediate level.” If parents and other grown-ups think that these things never happen at school in these ages, they will probably not talk about it with their children. One girl said that she would tell her mother about her experiences “if I get the question” (i.e., if my mother were to ask me).
The girls did not want their parents to interfere and cause a chain reaction of parents’ involvement and then being accused by other girls of upsetting their parents. “My mother would be shocked.”
Even if the girls could talk about their experiences to a certain extent in the focus groups, they seemed to be resistant even then. The discussion regarding the possibility that boys would take a chance to touch girls in a sexual way while playing rugby was an example of the difficulties the girls had in talking about the problem. The first girl most likely had some experience of being touched in a sexual way but she probably did not want to talk more about it as another girl said that it could not possibly have happened. This must also be confusing for the girls because when they feel someone else’s hands on their body, they do not know whether that person did it on purpose. At the same time, they probably know that the boys would never admit that they had touched the girls in a sexual way on purpose. During the focus group interviews, one girl said that she thought it was a mistake when a boy had touched another girl, thereby making it more difficult for other girls to reveal what had happened to them and whether they thought these occurrences were deliberate on the part of the boys. It was certainly not something the girls discussed easily; rather it was treading on thin ice, even among a group of girls who knew each other quite well.
One reason why sexual harassment remains concealed, according to the girls, is that shy girls—that is, girls who would be less likely to reveal or protest about the boys’ conduct—are more at risk of being harassed by the boys.
The girls in Grades 5 and 6 spoke about the positive experience when the principle had informed everyone in all the different classes that sexual harassment such as calling someone “whore,” “fag,” and so on was unacceptable behavior at the school. This was the first time it was mentioned as a public problem, and it seemed to have given the girls some kind of validation, even if it was presented as general information for all pupils.
A romantic discourse
Some boys and girls had romantic relationships with each other in the school, even the youngest age groups. They “were together,” indicating that a boy and a girl had a certain relationship, which did not always include seeing each other outside the school. Some boys and girls were more popular than others, and this negotiation, as to whether the boy was in love with a girl, seemed to confuse the perception of harassment among the girls.
According to the girls in Grade 5, a popular boy in their class had been together with many of the girls in the class, giving him high status among the boys as well as the girls. After he had ended a relationship, he could harass ex-girlfriends through comments such as “send my greetings to the damned whore.” The girls then felt violated and found it difficult to understand how he could act that way toward girls he used to like and go with.
Other examples of situations that the girls found difficult to define as harassment were when a boy was harassing a girl, for example, throwing her hat away, chasing her, and similar relatively innocent acts, often in a seemingly mutual manner. A common interpretation among the girls was that a boy behaved this way because he was in love with the girl. The girls seemed to have difficulties defining the limit of behavior that was not motivated by love. Examples of statements were “Dave is in love with Lyn, but he doesn’t dare to admit it. He pulls her hat off and everything. He bothers her every day. And he sort of thinks it’s fun.”
The girls admit that they do not think that when boys tease and annoy girls, it always means that they are in love with them. However, the belief that some of the boys do it because they are in love seemed to be confusing for them. They were also aware of expressions of masculinity and the need for boys to be tough in the boys’ group. “The boys want to be tough when they are in love with a girl.”
An example of the confusion between violence and love is a narrative from a girl in Grade 3. She told us about a romantic relationship she had had about half a year earlier.
“And . . . what to say, . . . I have sort of been together with someone, and I have broken up with him, and then that guy wants me to be together with him again. And then he pulled off my hat, sort of. And then he might think that I think ‘Okay, maybe I could be together with him again,’ so he calms down. He wants me to believe that.”
“Okay, let’s see, he is bothering and harassing you because he wants you to be together with him again, is that right?”
“Well, I think that, but I don’t want to be together with him again because he is so awful, and he . . . , before I broke up with him he kicked a friend in her stomach with his foot, and things like that . . . but I don’t want to be . . .”
“Did he hit you?”
“Yes, he has hit me too.”
“When you were together?”
“Yes, and then. . . .”
“. . . and then you broke up with him?”
“Yes. . . .”
The discussion went on and the other girls in the group told stories about violent boys in the class and problematic relationships. The girls obviously had difficulties differentiating between the boys’ need to construct dominant masculinity, their behavior, and girls’ responsibility to boys as being a former girlfriend.
Discussion
The results show that girls in elementary school experience sexual harassment by boys at their school and that it has negative consequences for them. Themes identified as parts of a normalizing process of sexual harassment at school include concealing it and/or perceiving it as a part of a heterosexual romantic discourse.
These young girls aged 7 to 12 experienced a range of behaviors related to sexual harassment, such as verbal, nonverbal, and sexual assault and as such were exposed to experiences similar to those suffered by older girls (Dahinten, 2003; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Larkin, 1994; Stein, 2008; Witkowska & Gillander Gådin, 2005). The girls could also identify negative consequences that they experienced from the sexual harassment, similar to reports from older girls, such as school avoidance and fear (Dahinten, 1999).
This study showed that not all situations of sexual harassment were equally condemned by the girls; it all depended on the context. This is in line with Robinson (2005), who describes sexual harassment as a contradictory, complex, and multilayered behavior leading to a reaction depending on who the harasser is, how many he is harassing, and where it takes place. That means that not all exposure to sexual harassment has the same negative consequences for the individual pupil. However, being in an environment where there is a risk of being exposed to sexual harassment leads to a hostile environment even for the nonexposed pupil. This also shows the complexity of the phenomenon and the difficulties in formulating questions about sexual harassment in survey research. The contexts as well as the power relationships between the involved pupils are important when we want to increase our understanding of sexual harassment in schools. However, even if 6-year-old boys do not cause devastating consequences for older girls when they sexually harass them, it is still a behavior that needs attention, as the boys have to learn about behaviors that are unacceptable and interfere with the learning environment.
The results of this study show that sexual harassment not was easily discussed within the girls’ group and that it was an unknown phenomenon to the parents and not acknowledged as a problem by the staff at school. The girls had to deal with sexual harassment at school, whether as a victim or as a bystander. Even if the younger girls reported their own and direct experiences of sexual harassment at school to a lesser extent, they still lived in a context where they saw other girls being sexually harassed.
When the principal publicly acknowledged sexual harassment as a problem at the school and announced that it was not acceptable behavior, the problem of sexual behavior was framed as an organizational and structural problem and not merely an individual problem. It is possible that the general acknowledgment of sexual harassment as unacceptable behavior by the perpetrator takes away the individual responsibility and the shame of the individual pupils.
If the girls are right in their assumption that some boys harass girls because they are in love with them, then it is crucial that teachers and other adults around the pupils help the boys to handle their affection in a less violent or aggressive manner. However, it is not likely that most boys harass girls because of love but as a way to achieve status and power within the subcultures that boys construct.
Sexual harassment does not suddenly occur when boys and girls reach puberty, as proposed by McMaster, Connolly, Pepler, and Craig (2002). This study showed that the sexual harassment can be performed and acted out among pupils by boys as young as 6-year-old. It is likely that the younger boys were emulating the behavior of the older boys as a way to achieve status and conventional masculinity. The fact that a girl in Grade 2 had her clothes ripped off by boys of the same age tells us that boys can perform harassing and assaulting behavior far ahead of the onset of puberty. This behavior is instead interpreted as connected to masculinity and power, as suggested by, for example, Kenway and Fitzclarence (1997). According to Duncan (1999) and Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), the symbolic construction of heterosexual masculinity goes through misogyny and homophobia. At the same time, the boys can achieve status in their male subcultures if they are attractive and have heterosexual romances with girls (Davies, 1989). Young boys may feel a need to demonstrate heterosexual skills to impress their friends at the same time as they harass girls, use homophobic language, and police the borders of masculinity (Phoenix, 1997).
Even if the harassing behavior is a part of a problematic masculinity which should lead to deliberately designed interventions to change the behavior, we also need to discuss the situation in relation to girls’ construction of femininities. The present study shows that even a girl as young as in Grade 3 can have a romantic relationship which is interwoven with similar gender and power asymmetries as those among adults (World Health Organization, 2005). Girls are struggling with their heterosexual romantic ideal, and having a boyfriend will increase their status among girls and contribute to a desirable femininity. Acting out a heterosexual relationship at young ages is probably influenced by the same heterosexual paradigm that occurs in the rest of society, that is, that of a dominant masculinity and submissive femininity (Tolman et al., 2003).
There seems to be a complex situation where the girls and boys negotiate status within the group of girls and within the groups of boys. The boys show a romantic interest in the girls at the same time as they struggle for power among boys through misogyny. This must give the girls double messages and distort the perception of what the harassing behavior means. It is a balancing act to decide when a welcome flirt turns into unwelcome harassment. In Renold’s (2002) study of 10-to-11-year-old girls, they were struggling to position themselves within the heterosexual/feminine discourse through a constant negotiation of boundaries between the “others,” that is, the girls who are nonattractive or too “tarty,” and the girls with enough status to be included in the group.
If girls who complain of sexual harassment to a teacher get the answer that the boy is just doing it because he likes her, then the perception that violence can be a part of love starts in an early age.
Methodological Considerations
There are several limitations that have to be raised in this study. The interviews were conducted within one school only, that is, not using informants from contrasting milieus and backgrounds. Including girls from other schools might have given a broader picture of young girls’ experiences of sexual harassment in school. One disadvantage of focus group interviews is the difficulty in differentiating between pupils involved, and in analyzing the interviews in terms of alternative power orders such as socioeconomic status and ethnicity. It is possible that power orders within the group of girls in this study silenced some of the girls and that some experiences remain unacknowledged. The study was performed in a small school in a relatively disadvantaged area in Sweden, and one question is whether the results of this study are transferable to schools in other contexts. Even if girls’ experiences can vary in different contexts, the World Health Organization (2005) shows that gender-based violence is a widespread and global phenomenon. The study consisted of relatively few focus groups; however, these three groups on two occasions represented all age groups and belonged to several different subgroups of girls at the school. In spite of the small number of groups, the analysis showed a variety of forms of sexual harassment and gave a broad picture of the consequences for the girls. The fact that the interviewer came back to the school for a second interview could have made the girls feel more comfortable and willing to share their experiences. A way to find out whether the results of this study are trustworthy and transferable to other contexts is to develop methods to ask younger pupils and not wait until they are old and skilled enough to answer questionnaires constructed for adolescents.
The experience in the present study was similar to that in the study by Chambers et al. (2004) that pupils had to be asked directly about their experiences and that it was surprisingly widespread. However, the fact that the interviewer had to introduce the subject and to encourage the girls to speak about sexual harassment before they dared to do so needs further ethical consideration. There could be critique that the interviewer has put a greater focus on sexual harassment than the girls wanted and that it could have had negative consequences for the girls in the group. However, as some girls spontaneously confirmed the importance and relief they had felt after the earlier focus group interview, the risk is considered to be low. Another ethical issue is that the interview situation gave the girls a possibility to be confirmed in their experiences that an adult took them seriously and could confirm that it was a problem they were not responsible for. This could lead to less guilt and shame and give the girls higher self-esteem (Probyn, 2005). The interviewer could also denormalize particular behaviors, for example, the situation where a girl thought that she was responsible for a violent former boyfriend, telling her that it was not her responsibility.
Conclusions
Similar patterns of sexual harassment occur among young school children as among older pupils. The manifestations of sexual harassment can start and are formed during early years, and there is a risk that it will continue to develop later on. Those who work with young children need to be aware of these phenomena and develop methods to approach the subject with very young children and not think that this age group is immune from perpetration and victimization.
At the same time, sexual harassment must be acknowledged at the organizational and the structural level and not seen simply as a responsibility for individual girls to handle.
Interventions in schools are critical, not only for the victims or the general environment but also as the perpetrators are at risk of future violence as they learn “to become empowered over others in an unhealthy manner, that is unlikely to be functional in later childhood” (Crothers & Levinson, 2004). Educators and health practitioners must develop methods to work with boys who exhibit and glorify dominant aspects of masculinity. Simultaneously, adults need to work with girls on strategies for empowerment and resiliency.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author wants to thank the students who contributed with their experiences and who made this study possible. She also wants to thank Nan Stein at Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College for her comments on an earlier draft and for her encouragement to complete this study.
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research and the Municipality of Sundsvall.