Sexual assault in school, mental health and suicidal behaviors in adolescent women in Canada

Adolescence, Summer, 1997 by Christopher Bagley, Floyd Bolitho, Lorne Bertrand

There is a considerable literature on sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, colleges, and universities, but the literature in high schools in North America is slight. Since a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1992 established that sexually harassed students could sue school boards, the literature has increased considerably, most of which is addressed to school principals concerning methods to educate and deter those who engage in such harassment (e.g., Wickum, 1992; Bryant, 1993; Strauss, 1994; First & Curcio, 1994; Cooper, 1994).

The data base on the amount of sexual harassment experienced by female high school students and the potential impact of such harassment on personal adjustment is not well established. The study reported here appears to be one of the first to employ mental health measures to assess this potential impact.

METHOD

A stratified random sample of public and separate (Catholic) schools was drawn so as to represent urban, small town, and rural areas of the province of Alberta. A condition of access was that no type of school board or school district would be identified in reporting of data. The questionnaire was completed in 1993 by 2,118 male and female students in grades 7 through 12. The major focus of the questionnaire was use of alcohol and drugs, but a range of self-completion questions on school life and personal adjustment were also asked.

The questions on sexual assault and harassment in school established three types of assault: indecent exposure; physical (unwanted sexual touching through to rape); and other (mostly verbal harassment, but also including some more serious sexual assaults (see Table 1). The questions were: "While at school (inside or outside or in a school bus) has someone: exposed themselves to you?; Touched the private parts of your body when you didn't want them to do it?; Done something else you didn't want them to (please specify)?" The response categories were "often," "a few times," "once," "never."

The measures of adjustment are those developed in the Ontario Child Health Study (Sanford, Offord, Boyle, & Peace, 1992). These self-completion measures have established reliability and validity in terms of known psychiatric categories (Boyle, Offord, Racine, & Sanford, 1993). They have established population parameters for emotional disorder (depression and anxiety) and suicidal ideas and behavior (Links, Boyle, & Offord, 1989; Joffe, Offord, & Boyle, 1988). The "clinical profile" for emotional disorder in Table 2 is based on norms established in the Ontario Child Health Study.

TABLE 1: FREQUENCY OF TYPES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT EXPERIENCED BY 1,025
FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN GRADES 7 THROUGH 12

Type of assault             Often     A few times     Once
Never

Someone exposed selves       2.0%         10.4%       10.2%
77.4%

Someone touched private
parts                        3.7%          8.2%        7.7%
80.4%

Verbal and/or other
assault or harassment        4.1%          6.4%        3.6%
85.9%

It is likely that the situation in American schools is as bad or worse than it is in Canada. Sexual harassment is a major problem which school administrators must address in terms of prevention, and school counsellors in terms of therapy.

It should be mentioned that this survey indicates that males also are the subject of sexual harassment; but rates for males are much lower and the connection with mental health problems is much weaker.

REFERENCES

Bagley, C. (1992). Development of an adolescent stress scale for use by school counsellors: Construct validity in terms of depression, self-esteem and suicidal ideation. School Psychology International, 13, 31-49.

Boyle, M., Offord, D., Racine, Y., & Stanford, M. (1993). Evaluation of the diagnostic interview for children and adolescents for use in the general population. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 21, 663-681.

Bryant, A. (1993). Hostile hallways: The AAUW survey on sexual harassment in America's schools. Journal of School Health, 63, 355-357.

Charney, D., & Russell, R. (1994). An overview of sexual harassment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 10-17.

Cooper, G. (1994). Sexual harassment in the schools. School Business Affairs, 60, 30-31.

First, P., & Curcio, J. (1994). Ethical liability: Are girls safe in your schools? School Business Affairs, 60, 37-39.

Joffe, R., Offord, D., & Boyle, M. (1988). Ontario Child Health Study: Suicidal behavior in youth aged 12-16 years. American Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 1420-1423.

Links, P., Boyle, M:, & Offord, D. (1989). The prevalence of emotional disorder in children. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 85-91.

Roscoe, B., Strouse, J., & Goodwin, M. (1984). Sexual harassment: Early adolescents' self-reports of experiences and acceptance. Adolescence, 115, 515-523.

Sanford, M., Offord, D., Boyle, M., & Pearce, A. (1992). Ontario Child Health Study: Social and school impairments in children aged 6 to 16 years. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 199, 60-67.