Sexual Harassment and the Cultures of Childhood: Developmental, Domestic Violence, and Legal Perspectives

• Published in: Journal of applied school psychology 2003-12, Vol.19 (2), p.177-196
• Main Authors: Rodkin, Philip C., Fischer, Karla
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: domestic violence; middle childhood; peer relations; Sexual harassment; social status
• ISSN: 1537-7903; 1537-7911
• DOI: 10.1300/J008v19n02_11

Sexual harassment is increasingly recognized as a common problem for schoolchildren. Four out of five 8th through 11th graders have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their school lives. Of the girls who experience harassment, 38% report that they were first harassed in 6th grade or before (AAUW, 2001). We propose that children construct a peer-based «school society» where attitudes and behaviors are strongly connected to peer group influence and concerns about social status. School-based peer sexual harassment emerges from a climate of tense, unequal social relations between boys and girls during middle childhood, accelerating into adolescence. One unexplored possibility is that some boys with high social status among their peers may engage in or encourage harassment of girls. Next, we turn to a distinct social context embedded within the school society: relationships of abuse between boy and girl peers. We explore how the dynamics of domestic violence apply to sexual harassment between peers, illustrating themes from narratives of child sexual harassment victims derived from interviews and legal cases. We also use these narratives to examine the institutional responses to sexual harassment by school authorities, identifying the parallels to domestic violence legal solutions. Our discussion emphasizes how school service providers can better appreciate and react to the social and relational context of boys' harassment of girls.