Ignorance Is Not Bliss: A U.K. Study of Sexual and Domestic Abuse Awareness on Campus, and Correlations With Confidence and Positive Action in a Bystander Program

Abstract

This article reports on a U.K. research study encompassing two surveys which used evidence-based scales of awareness, confidence to intervene, and intervention opportunities and action regarding sexual and domestic abuse on campus. They were sent to all first-year incoming undergraduates (> n = 7,000) at one post-1992 U.K. university and received n = 1,604 responses. The study finds that survey respondents demonstrated low awareness of sexual and domestic abuse as a problem on campus. In the analysis of Survey 2, respondents were divided into three groups, those receiving active intervention, passive intervention, and no intervention from a university social norms marketing campaign challenging abuse on campus. The study drives the field forward by considering how confidence to act mediates the relationship between awareness and positive action. It finds associations between active intervention and raised awareness that is not noted in passive or no intervention. Active intervention potentially brings together the mediating variable of confidence where awareness + confidence = positive action. This article makes recommendations for first-year incoming undergraduates to receive awareness raising information about sexual and domestic abuse, prior to coming to university. Universities may also consider working with schools to counter a lack of awareness, which may emanate from normalization discourses learnt prior to coming to university and perpetuated once there. Managing low awareness of sexual and domestic abuse should be a priority of bystander programs and some form of active intervention is potentially beneficial as early as possible in university student journeys.

What is Currently Understood About the Impact of Sexual Violence Activism for Higher Education Student Sexual Violence Survivors?

“…Activism can be a way to gain some sort of closure where institutional or legal recourse has not been effective; in this way, activists can be constructed as ‘agents of change’ (*Krause et al, 2017). Bovill & White, 2020 have also explored agentic change as an aspect of activism, noting that activists can be important in keeping the subject of sexual violence on the agenda within university environments that can be resistant or reluctant to acknowledge issues of sexual violence. Drawing on Kingdon’s (2010) work on ‘policy windows’, *Bovill et al, 2020 explore activists as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ who use these policy windows for change.…”

“…Whilst resolutions have not necessarily occurred from this action, the university has stated its openness to 'listening to demands', and though this movement is from a UK vantage point, it is relevant in a much broader context as it represents an example of a 'policy window' (Kingdon, 2010). Referring back to * Bovill et al (2020), this movement, precipitated by Sarah Everard's murder, and other movements like it demonstrate the potential for activism and activists acting as 'policy entrepreneurs' (Kingdon, 2010) to grasp these moments to bring about change. However, working in community with proactive supportive institutions on board is key.…”

“…*Linder et al (2016) note that social media activism can help shape a collective identity across time and space, and *Rentschler (2018) highlights this capacity too, noting media use can make activism more visible and therefore harder to erase and online activist networking enables scalability of activism across universities. * Bovill et al (2020) also consider the capacity of online student sexual violence activism to create a place where previous cohorts of student sexual violence activists can record their actions forming "institutional memory" (* Whitford, 2019). The rhythm of university life, which includes long holidays, periods of extreme workload and the passing of one student cohort to the next, can be the greatest barrier to activism.…”

“…A first-round identification screening launched this review, identifying records between January 2010 and September 2020 because heightened interest in campus sexual violence stems from around 2010 in the UK in particular, but also from other countries such as the US (* Bovill et al, 2020). Other exclusion limiters were 'English language' and 'higher education' where databases permitted.…”

“…Emotional, physical, mental and social labour resulting from sexual violence activism was highlighted throughout the literature, together with the public nature of having your story known (for example, * Bovill et al, 2020;*Krause et al, 2017;*Linder et al, 2016;*Marine & Trebisacci, 2018;*Mitra, 2015). Accounts of backlash, discrimination and isolation, poor academic performance, burnout, isolation from the university experience and a sense of futility emerged.…”