Bystander interventions focus on framing violence as a community problem and encourage all community members to act as prosocial bystanders if they witness a dangerous situation. Research has demonstrated there are multiple barriers and facilitators that might discourage or encourage an individual to act as a prosocial bystander. A qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis (QIMS) of existing literature was conducted to determine university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers. A systematic search of the literature was completed to identify articles that included university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers, utilized a qualitative methodology, and contained participant quotations in the published article. The search yielded 181 articles and after screening 10 articles were included in the QIMS. The original themes and participant quotations were qualitatively coded to develop five new themes: (1) the impact of alcohol, (2) beliefs about responsibility, (3) peer perceptions, (4) indicators and situational dilemmas, and (5) the role of friendship and group impact. The results of this synthesis reveal important implications for the continued development of bystander intervention programs for universities. By incorporating the perspectives of university students, bystander intervention programs may be more effective at encouraging students to be prosocial bystanders by confronting perceived barriers to intervention.

Sexual violence is a prevalent issue on university campuses today. Bystander intervention programs, which frame violence as a community problem, are a possible solution to address the issue of sexual violence on campus. As members of the university community, faculty can play an integral role in preventing sexual violence on campus. However, little research has assessed faculty members’ perceptions of their role on campus in the prevention of sexual violence. In this study, three focus groups were conducted with ten faculty members who had participated in a faculty-focused bystander intervention workshop. Researchers coded the narrative data from the focus groups and three themes emerged about faculty members’ perceptions of their role on campus: 1) modeling bystander behavior, 2) ally to students, and 3) changing cultural norms. The study findings reveal that faculty see themselves as having varied roles in the prevention of sexual violence on campus. Social work faculty can use their unique skillset to raise awareness among their faculty colleagues about the need for bystander intervention training for all faculty. The findings also reveal important implications about including faculty in bystander intervention programs in order to change cultural norms around sexual violence on university campuses.