Friends, strangers, and bystanders

Informal practices of sexual assault intervention

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21189270
AutoresAlexander Wamboldt (Columbia University), Shamus R Khan (0009-0008-7029-4207, Columbia University), Shamus Khan (0000-0003-0331-5000, Columbia University), Claude Ann Mellins (0000-0002-1978-7638, Columbia University Irving Medical Center), Jennifer S Hirsch (0000-0001-9038-7832, Columbia University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume14
Fascículo1
Páginas53-64
Data de publicação2019-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoGlobal Public Health (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1744-1692 • E-ISSN: 1744-1706
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17441692.2018.1472290
PMID29733255
OpenAlexW2799980774
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas18
Referências citadas33

Sexual assault is a part of many students' experiences in higher education. In U.S. universities, one in four women and one in ten men report being sexually assaulted before graduation. Bystander training programmes have been shown to modestly reduce campus sexual assault. Like all public health interventions, however, they have unintended social consequences; this research examines how undergraduate men on one campus understand bystander interventions and how those understandings shape their actual practices. We draw on ethnographic data collected between August 2015 and January 2017 at Columbia University and Barnard College. Our findings show that university training and an earnest desire to be responsible lead many men to intervene in possible sexual assaults. However, students' gendered methods target more socially vulnerable and socially distant men while protecting popular men and those to whom they are socially connected. Students' actual bystander practices thus reproduce social hierarchies in which low prestige may or may not be connected to actual risks of sexual assault. These results suggest that understanding intragroup dynamics and social hierarchies is essential to assault prevention in universities and that students' actions as bystanders may be effective at preventing assaults in some circumstances but may lead to new risks of sexual assault

Bystander effect · Criminology · Ethnography · Harassment · Medical emergency · Poison control · Prestige · Psychiatry · Psychological intervention · Sexual assault · Sexual violence · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Medicine · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Social Psychology · Sports, Gender, and Society · Workplace Violence and Bullying