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September/October 1998
by Nancy Walser
Day after day, researchers from Hofstra University watched as Joey harassed one girl after another in his 7th-grade class. One day, Joey picked one of his more unattractive classmates for a long-running monologue about the various sexual favors she could do for him. Adding insult to her injury, other classmates egged him on by saying, "Joey would never go for slag like that." Finally the teacher spoke up, saying only, "Oh, Joey, calm down." Never, in three years of observation, did Joey suffer any real consequences for his behavior.
For both teachers and students, middle school is seen as a place "where people make fun of you, where you have to be more careful-a place where you learn to take it," says Charol Shakeshaft, professor of administration and policy at Hofstra who is writing a book about the three-year study of nine New York area middle schools. Ironically, while both students and teachers seemed to accept the environment as a given, both groups told Hofstra researchers that they would like "something to be done."
But what if Joey's classmates had behaved differently? What if they had told him to stop the harassment, or had gathered around the girl to defend her. In fact, enlisting bystanders in the fight against peer harassment may be the hidden weapon needed to combat the pervasive problem of bullying and sexual harassment (gender-related bullying) in schools.
"The notion of the bystander appears to be really important to changing the culture," says Eleanor Linn, senior associate director at University of Michigan's Programs for Educational Opportunity. Linn completed a review of interventions this year, which was commissioned by the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence for the U.S. Justice Department. As it turns out, no intervention or program to combat peer harassment has yet been evaluated. However, a look at what works when it comes to preventing sexual abuse, date rape, and other violence has turned up some clues about just how effective bystanders can be in stopping harassment, she says.
When it comes to designing an effective program, research shows that kids tend to retain information if adults tell them they can use it "to help a friend," says Linn. This means students can be motivated to stand up to harassers if they see it as part of protecting their schoolmates. Bystanders are also in a better position to stand up to harassers, says Linn. Unlike targets, bystanders are not as traumatized, so confronting a harasser can be easier.
Not many educational materials address the role of the bystander, says Linn. Some that do are published by the Wellesley Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. Rather than tell teachers what they should tell students to do, however, these materials contain activities for helping students come up with their own ideas about how they can respond to harassing acts.
In Flirting or Hurting? (for grades 6-12), for instance, students discuss how they would have acted if they'd witnessed several incidents that became well-known court cases. In Bully Proof (for grades 4-5), students discuss the "degrees" of courage it takes to confront a bully depending on whether the bully is a friend or an unpopular student. In Quit It! a new curriculum for grades K-3 published this year by the Wellesley Center, students are asked how they can "listen to their strong side" to help someone being teased on the playground.
The language adults use when encouraging children to talk about peer harassment is very important, says Nan D. Stein, a Wellesley researcher who helped develop and write all three books while documenting the high rates of sexual harassment in schools over the past two decades. Although sexual harassment is serious and illegal, children can more readily understand the concept when it is put in the context of "gender-related" bullying, she says.
Despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision shielding schools from damages, they can still be held liable for incidents of sexual harassment under Title IX. And even though families have increasingly resorted to lawsuits, incident rates of sexual harassment in schools have not changed much since the early 1990s, according to Stein, who is also a coauthor with Linn of the new Justice Department report. Surveys show that girls have an 80 to 97 percent chance of being sexually harassed in school, while boys have a 60 to 80 percent chance.
Stein, Linn, and other experts say it's time for schools to use a whole arsenal of strategies to battle the problem. Awareness campaigns, posters, schoolwide surveys, policies, incident reporting procedures, and counseling are also part of the solution. So, too, are students.
For Further Information
E. Linn. "The Effectiveness of Existing Programs and Approaches for Reducing Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence in Schools." Available from the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence, 1925 North Lynn St., Suite 305, Rosslyn, VA 22209; 703-527-4217.
N. Stein. "Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence in K-12 Schools." Available from the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence.
Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02181; 617-283-2507.
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