Library and Academic Services: Sexual Violence Awareness -- Education, Prevention and Supports: Campus Sexual Assault

Introduction

Campus Sexual Assault

A recent study by the Government of Canada found that a majority (71%) of students at Canadian postsecondary schools witnessed or experienced unwanted sexualized behaviours in a postsecondary setting in 2019. One in ten women included in the study experienced a sexual assault in a postsecondary setting during the previous year.

These stats are staggering and highlight the need to draw greater awareness to the issue of campus sexual violence. Being aware of the problem is an important step in addressing it.

The sources below bring together current research and statistics on campus sexual assault in North America.

Image source: Pixabay.com

Reports, Papers and Articles

Burczycka, M. (2020, September 14). Students’ experiences of unwanted sexualized behaviours and sexual assault at postsecondary schools in the Canadian provinces, 2019. Statistics Canada.
Greater awareness of gender-based violence, sexual consent and related attitudes about what constitutes acceptable behaviour is emerging in many public spheres, including on postsecondary campuses and their online spaces. Widespread disclosures by survivors of various forms of sexual misconduct, propelled by platforms such as #MeToo, have increased the visibility of sexual assault and related behaviours and brought about discussions about their root causes...
Cotter, A., & Savage, L. (2019, December 5). Gender-based violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2018: Initial findings from the Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces. Statistics Canada.
Measuring gender-based violence is complex. The victims—and even the perpetrators—may not themselves perceive the motivations for the incident as being rooted in social structures and systems, which can serve to produce and reproduce gender inequality and gendered violence across many dimensions. Because of this, asking about gender-based violence directly in a survey may not lead to accurate findings or conclusions....
Courage to Act: Developing a National draft Framework to Address and Prevent Gender-Based Violence at Post-Secondary Institutions in Canada
The “Courage to Act” report captures promising practices, key policy areas, and prevention plans as the foundation of a framework to address and prevent gender-based violence at post-secondary institutions in Canada.
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Courage to Act is a two-year project to address and prevent gender-based violence at post-secondary institutions in Canada. It builds on Possibility Seeds’ vital report Courage to Act: Developing a National Framework to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence at Post-Secondary Institutions which provided key recommendations.
Ending sexual violence on campus (University Affairs)
The 2013 academic year got off to a troublesome start. It was early September and frosh week had just begun at campuses across the country. At Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, student leaders led several hundred first-year students in an acrostic chant that went like this: “Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight; U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for grab that ass.” Days later came reports of a similar cheer, this time at the University of British Columbia, a school that was in the midst of coping with a series of frightening sexual assaults....
Khan, S., Hirsch, J., Wamboldt, A., & Mellins, C. (2018). “I Didn’t Want To Be ‘That Girl’”: The Social Risks of Labeling, Telling, and Reporting Sexual Assault. Sociological Science, 5(19), 432–460.
This article deploys ethnographic data to explain why some students do not label experiences as sexual assault or report those experiences.
Sexual Violence on Campuses (CFS)
This fact sheet examines the gendering of sexual violence and its prevalence in post-secondary institutions as well as the issues victims face when attempting to report their assault.
Training for Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence in B.C. Post-Secondary Institutions
The purpose of this toolkit is to assist B.C. post-secondary institutions with evaluating and selecting resources to support their ongoing planning and delivery of training on sexualized violence.

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Library Resources

Campus Sexual Assault: College Women Respond by Lauren J. Germain
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2016
A 2014 report issued by the White House Council on Women and Girls included the alarming statistic that one in five female college students in the United States experiences some form of campus sexual assault. Despite more than fifty years of anti-rape activism and over two decades of federal legislation regarding campus sexual violence, sexual assault on American college and university campuses remains prevalent, underreported, and poorly understood....
Perspectives on college sexual assault : perpetrator, victim, and bystander by Maiuro, Roland D., editor.
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2015
This collection of highly acclaimed research articles, published in the peer-reviewed journal Violence and Victims, disseminates state-of-the-art information about sexual violence on campus. It addresses the controversy surrounding statistics on the prevalence of college sexual assault and its tendency to go unreported, as well as contention regarding university policies and response (or lack thereof) by administrators.
Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities by Elizabeth Quinlan; Andrea Quinlan; Curtis Fogel; Gail Taylor (Editors)
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2017
At least one in four women attending college or university will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. Beyond this staggering statistic, recent media coverage of "rape chants" at Saint Mary's University, misogynistic Facebook posts from Dalhousie University's dental school, and high-profile incidents of sexual violence at other Canadian universities point to a widespread culture of rape on university campuses and reveal universities' failure to address sexual violence. ...
Sexual Violence on Campus: overview, issues and actions by Michael P. Watts
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2015
In recent years, a number of high-profile incidents of sexual violence at institutions of higher education (IHEs) have heightened congressional and administration scrutiny of the policies and procedures that IHEs currently have in place to address campus sexual violence and how these policies and procedures can be improved. Campus sexual violence is widely acknowledged to be a problem. ...
Sexual Violence on Campus: Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response by Chris Linder
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2018
Activists have been working to call attention to the problem of campus sexual violence for decades, and in recent years, policymakers, campus administrators, and researchers have begun to make serious efforts to address this issue. Despite this increase in attention, many campus leaders still struggle to effectively address campus sexual violence, often over-relying on policy to address sexual violence after it happens, rather than working to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Moreover, rates of sexual victimization on college campuses have not changed in 60 years,...
Violence Goes to College by C. Bollinger; R. Flintoft; J. Nicoletti; S. Spencer-Thomas; M. Dvoskina (editors)
Location: ebook
Publication Date: 2018
This updated and expanded new edition continues the theme of the second edition that presents a framework by which the reader can gain a broader and deeper understanding of the issues involved with campus violence incidents. In order to understand the current state of campus violence, two sources of information must be considered-the factual and the theoretical....
We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out by Annie E. Clark; Andrea L. Pino
Publication Date: 2016
More than one in five women and 5 percent of men are sexually assaulted while at college. Some survivors are coming forward; others are not. In We Believe You, students from every kind of college and university share experiences of trauma, healing, and everyday activism, representing a diversity of races, economic and family backgrounds, gender identities, immigration statuses, interests, capacities, and loves.
This book is not available through OneSearch, but you can request it through our Inter-Library Loan service.

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