Perceptions of sexual harassment amongst university students : a case study of the South African Military Academy

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Tertiary institutions worldwide as well as locally have investigated sexual harassment ontheir campuses. This was done partly because of the negative consequences of sexualharassment on students and staff, particularly their work performance. Incidents of sexualharassment reported at universities range from rape and sexual assault to threats andsexist remarks by lecturers. When researching this phenomenon, difficulty is normallyencountered partly due to the uncertainty that surrounds this activity. This is becauseperceptions differ as to what kind of conduct constitutes sexual harassment. Researchfurther indicates that there are gender and racial differences in the assessment of sexualharassment. The current study investigates the uncertainty, gender and racial differencesthat exist regarding sexual harassment at a specific university campus. By means of asurvey the perceptions of students regarding these three issues were determined at theFaculty of Military Science, a satellite campus of the University of Stellenbosch. With theutilisation of statistlcal packages, frequencies and statistical differences amongst thevarious sub-groups at the campus were determined. This was done in order to comparethese findings with those of other universities who conducted similar sexual harassmentsurveys on their campuses in South Africa. It was found that no clear idea of whatconstitutes sexual harassment exist amongst these students. In particular women in thesurvey consistently viewed more incidents as contributing to sexual harassment than men.As oppose to other findings, Blacks registered a more conservative attitude whenassessing whether certain incidents can be viewed as sexual harassment. The above wasfound notwithstanding the differing social context, especially the socialisation process andthe fairly rigid codes of conduct, that students at the Military Academy are exposed to.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University