How To Prevent Sexual Harassment In The Educational Institution

Concept Of Sexual Harassment

How to Prevent Sexual Harassment in the Educational Institution.

A literature review is the second chapter of a dissertation in which all the relevant and detailed literature regarding the topic would be cited and explained. It has been observed in the present scenario, that the term sexual harassment has become one of the burning issues globally which have manifested itself in different forms and images. The concept of sexual harassment is still unclear in some of the countries where people and especially women are being objectified by their male counterparts in the society (Reena, 2012). This component of the study would be delivering the concept of sexual harassment at the educational institutions and also the ways and policies of preventing such act of criminality. Thus, the following manner the aspects are being explained in order to deliver a complete understanding of the facts.

In the past few years, the concept of sexual harassment has been examined and explained in terms of the unwelcomed and unwanted behaviour of a person that has the potential of mentally and physically devastating the victim. In the educational institutions, the act of sexual harassment has increased in past several years and the students in those institutions often feel unsafe during their courses of education (Akhtar, March 2013). Thus, the instances regarding sexual harassment could be stated in the following manner.

? Unwanted indication and uncomfortable behaviour towards the targeted person

? The demand of intimation with someone in exchange for certain services in an educational programme.

? An authoritative behaviour by someone powerful to those who could be used to gain certain benefits.

? Most importantly, the act is a nonreciprocal relationship between consent and a not consent individual.

In the context of an educational institutional scenario, there are often chances that an immense imbalance power works between the service delivered and the services users (Joseph, 2015). Many universities and schools in Australia are facing a difficulty in conducting their daily course of duties due to increasing incidents of sexual harassments. Therefore, the educational institutions like schools and universities must adopt certain protocols in order to prevent sexual harassments.

The word sexual harassment itself could explain a bulk of images that are not expressed in front of the society very often. The act does not limit itself only to women, but to children and young adults as well. In order to evaluate the facets of the sexual harassment, several types of it could be explained (Gill, 2013).  Within the educational institutions there are several threads of sources through which students or staff could experience sexual harassment, such as

• A teacher or professor asking for intimation with his or her students in exchange of grades in the final exams.
• A male head of the department harassing his female subordinate in terms of extending her contract with the institution.
• Male employees deliberately touching or hitting their female colleague with files or pens.
• The sexual harassments could also be performed by students as many instances have been observed in which female students intentionally tries to get intimate of faculty without their consent (Mohamed, 2015).

Type of Sexual Harassment in Educational Institutions

Therefore, in the following part relevant and acute policies regarding the prevention of sexual harassment could be cited.

The main objective of the educational institutions is to reduce the rate of complaints and the numbers of incidents related to sexual harassment cases within the campuses.  Thus, the policies could be stated as below.

• Develop a strong and flexible relationship between the principle and the students in order to detect the sources of any issues and such communication should be covered with the discrimination act 2010.
• Implementation of student support services which would be helping in detecting complaints regarding sexual harassments (Suyanto, 2015).
• The Australian constitutions must deliver the opportunity for education to boys and girls under equality act.
• Spreading awareness regarding sexual harassment policies within the organisations and other educational institutions.
• Involve the entire school community at the time of developing the sexual harassment policies which should easily be accessible to the teachers as well as students and other staff of the institutions.

Hence, failure in the implementation process of the policies and procedure regarding sexual harassment could jeopardise the educational along with mental well being of the students and institution staff which may result in financial instability of the organisation (Gruber, 2015).

In the contemporary educational institutes have indulged with the term sexual harassments and the Australian Human Right Commission’s Survey has manifested that both national and international students are experiencing sexual harassment in their daily course of educational life (Mushoriwa, 2014). Therefore, the Australian educational institutes have announced to generate a ten point plan in regards to prevent sexual harassments at the university campuses and school premises as well.  Thus, the ten point plan could be stated in the following manner.

• The development of an evident and respectful relationship between the university authority and university students as it has been realised that mostly, university students are being attacked with sexual harassments.
• Development and generation of specialist training in which the training sessions would be conducted by specialists and counsellors from Australian psychological society in order to deliver counselling and moral support to the victims and survivors of sexual assault.
• 24/7 services operated by the national rape and domestic violence support which would help the educational institutional student to cope with the challenges as well.
• The widened scope for students to access to the support of university staff in case of emergency (Strauss, 2012).
• New incorporation of training and development programmes for university staff and other authoritative leaders to prevent sexual harassment and handle the situation with efficiency and confidentiality.
• Equip other educational institutions along with schools to develop first person training instruments that could help the victim to survive the situation.
• Incorporation of new practice guidelines in order to enhance the ability of university staff to support the victim.
• New principles for fresh students and a complete induction of training programmes.
• A commitment towards the proposed policies and maintain respect toward the purpose.
• Continuous student feedbacks to acquire knowledge regarding the policy effectiveness (McNally, 2016).

It is also suggested by the Australian Human Right Commission’s Survey that the educational institutions should adopted more strict and in-depth policies in order to prevent sexual harassment in the campuses.

In order to state the gap between the existing literature and the subject matter, it could be stated that the sources of literature lack in many aspects that were missing in the existing sources of information. The present literature manifests the concept of sexual harassment along with its types that are observed within the educational institutions. Therefore, it could be asserted that the present literature review could include a detailed explanation of the manner in which sexual harassment influences the mental state of a victim and how the education system is being affected in this regard. Through the incorporation of such thing the literature could appear more enriched and evident as well

The third chapter is considered as the heart of the dissertation in which all the relevant and proposed methods and techniques are being cited. In this context of the study, the researcher intends to deliver the data accumulation and findings processes, while stating the relevant philosophy and research design. The discussion regarding the methods and techniques adopted by the researcher are important to be discussed as it would help in realizing relevant way of accumulating data and analyzing those data which also contribute in drawing acute implication in this regard. In the course of accomplishing the literature accumulation journals between 2012 and 2016 have been used and all are related to the topic of sexual harassment and prevention in the educational institutions (Babbie, 2016).  Here, both the primary and secondary data would be involved in order to project more reliable and valid information about the ways of preventing sexual harassment.  The purpose of collecting and analysis both type of data is that through such mediums of data collection relevant, fresh at the same time reliable data would be gained and through this the research work would be enriched in an effective manner. Thus, the findings observed from the literature review part have a significant role as such information would instigate the scope for searching more in depth information related to the topic.

Relevant Policies to Be Incorporated For Prevention of Sexual Harassment

The primary data will include quantitative and qualitative data collection in which through a set of questionnaire quantitative data would be accumulated and through open ended questions qualitative information could be acquired.  The primary data could be accumulated from the students and staff from five selected renowned universities in Australia. On the other hand, the perspectives of the authorities and principle of those selected universities would be recorded in order to possess information how the institutions are practising policies against sexual harassment. Apart from this, in the case of secondary data, five selected journals related to the topic would be evaluated in order to gain valid and reliable information.  Assembled data would be analysed through using statistical and numerical tools that include tables, pie chart and graphs (Jha, 2008). The question involved in the questionnaire would be related to the incidents of sexual harassments in the institution campuses and how the universities are practising prevention act of sexual harassments. The question that would ask to the university authorities would be related to the institutional strategies and policies for preventing sexual assault on the campus. Most importantly, the qualitative questions will be developed in accordance with the Likert scale and provide with multiple choices for better results.  The sample size would be 120 students’ university staff and 5 university authorities would be chosen for qualitative questions.  In this regard both types of data collection would be appropriate in relation to the research topic as reliability is evident through more in depth analysis of the facts. Hence, the advantage of qualitative data is that the researcher would be able to assemble fresh and practical data which are recorded from the perspectives and opinion of students and university staff. On the other hand, the disadvantages in this regard could be realized in terms of difficulty in completing the data collection process and convincing the respondents. In case of the qualitative data, it is also almost same as the previous one. The benefits of such data are that it provides in-depth analysis of the situation from the industrial perspectives. The interview questions, in case of quantitative data collection would be provided to the respondents and developed in the structure multiple choice questions. On the other hand, the qualitative questions would be asked to the respondents in terms of face to face interview which would be recorded in a tape recorder and transcribed into documented format for future recommendations.

Ways To Prevent Sexual Harassment In Educational Institutions

Sampling is one of most important elements in the context of research methodology which helps in determining the sources of primary data. Here, several types of sampling could be identified such as probability sampling, non probability sampling, systematic sampling, and random sampling and so on. In the context of this specific study the researcher has adopted random sampling method for conducting primary data collection process. In the course of accumulating both the data, the researcher had faced few difficulties such as convincing the respondents for the data collection survey as they were afraid of the confidentiality. On the other hand, in case of secondary research, it was difficult to assemble empirical sources between 2012 and 2016 (Babbie, 2016).  Along with this, the researcher had faced difficulties in financial resources as it is conducted by mere student instead of any professional researcher. Moreover, another difficulty is the time constraint which is able to influence the quality of the work as well. But the researcher must maintain ethics during collecting data such as, informing the participants regarding the purpose of the survey and allowing them to participate as per their will. Along with that delivering assurance of confidentiality and maintenance of personal feelings are also important in this regard.  Nevertheless, the questions prepared by the author should not hurt any one’s feeling and it should also be ensured that the accumulated data and the identifications of the participants would be destroyed under strict supervision after the completion of the research work (Jha, 2008). Instead of the difficulties and issues the researcher has manifested the relative facts in an efficient manner and the work could be assumed to be a great piece of information for future references. Therefore, with the mentioned methods the researchers would be able to generate an effective piece of research study.

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Gill, R. (2013). Experiences and Perceptions of Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Forces Combat Arms. Violence Against Women , 269-287.

Gruber, J. (2015). Sexual Harassment, Bullying, and School Outcomes for High School Girls and Boys. Violence Against Women , 112-133.

Jha, N. K. (2008). Research methodology. Chandigarh [India]: Abhishek Publications.

Joseph, J. (2015). Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Institutions:A Comparative Perspective. Ostale teme , 3-18.

McNally, S. (2016). Sexual harassment and bullying in UK surgery: no room for complacency. BMJ , i4682.

Mohamed, A. A. (2015). Sexual Harassment in Malaysian Educational Institutions: Causes and Solutions. IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences , 17.

Mushoriwa, T. (2014). Should Peer-Generated Sexual Harassment be Called Sexual Harassment? Views of High School Students. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences .

Reena, M. (2012). Sexual Harassment against Women at Educational Institutions . International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) , 1-4.

Strauss, S. (2012). Sexual harassment and bullying. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Suyanto, B. (2015). No Save Place for Girls: Study on Sexual Harassments and Violence Against Girls in Indonesia. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal .