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

Objective: This systematic literature review maps the landscape of higher education and student sexual violence survivors who become involved in sexual violence activism. It was undertaken to understand what drives student sexual violence survivors to become activists, the negative and positive impacts of this activism on the students, how higher education institutions might work with sexual violence activists to foster effective prevention and response, and how activism has been negotiated by and within practice, policy and research. Method: A qualitative evidence synthesis methodology was used to identify research which examines drivers to and consequences of sexual violence activism for student activists. Searches across seven databases were conducted using six keywords combined in various ways, with further inclusion criteria of published in English between 2010 and 2020. Searches of grey literature were also carried out. Results: 28 sources met the inclusion criteria. Thematic analysis, conducted in NVivo, resulted in identification of four themes: survival from harm, community, labour in the personal made public and power between activists and institutions. Conclusions/Recommendations/Limitations: Inadequate institutional response was a key driver of student sexual violence activism. Activism had positive and negative impacts on the activists. Recommendations are that activists, institutions, researchers and policy makers work as coalitions to bring about enduring cultural change. Review limitations were the small number of studies in this field; additionally, they were dominated by US and UK perspectives.

Too much information: exploring technology-mediated abuse in higher education online learning and teaching spaces resulting from COVID-19 and emergency remote education.

During COVID-19, universities across the globe experienced a rapid requirement to move to online learning and teaching provision. This rapid move has been explored as emergency remote education (ERE). This paper reviews and presents some emerging literature regarding ERE, demonstrating how this created an environment where technology-mediated abuse could arise within the university context. Intentional and unintentional forms of technology-mediated abuse, within a global context, are considered with account of how intersectional characteristics can impact. The paper concludes with a set of provocations explored within an example framework. The provocations are given to situate ways of thinking which are facilitative of safer and more respectful use of technological spaces. Both the provocations and example framework aim to be useful critical tools for program and module teams to adapt in higher education institutions within the online sphere. The phenomenon of ERE is an opportunity to consider what can be learned with regard to management of technology-mediated abuse. However, a focus on ERE presents limitations in the paper because of the smaller number of academic sources at this time, due to recency of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

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.