We randomly assigned the Shifting Boundaries interventions to 30 public middle schools in New York City, enrolling 117 sixth and seventh grade classes (over 2,500 students) to receive a classroom, a building, a combined, or neither intervention. The classroom intervention included a six-session curriculum emphasizing the laws and consequences for perpetrators of dating violence and sexual harassment (DV/H), the social construction of gender roles, and healthy relationships. The building-based intervention included the use of building-based restraining orders, higher levels of faculty/security presence in safe/unsafe "hot spots" mapped by students, and posters to increase DV/H awareness and reporting. Student surveys were implemented at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 6-months post-intervention. As hypothesized, behaviors improved as a result of the interventions. The building-only and the combined interventions were effective in reducing sexual violence victimization involving either peers or dating partners at 6-months post-intervention. This was mirrored by reductions in sexual violence perpetration by peers in the building-only intervention. While the preponderance of results indicates that the interventions were effective, an anomalous result (increase in sexual harassment victimization reports that was contradicted by lower frequency estimates) did emerge. However, after analysis these anomalous results were deemed to be most likely spurious. The success of the building-only intervention alone is important because it can be implemented with very few extra costs to schools.
In this article, Nan Stein argues that sexual harassment in schools is a form of gendered violence that often happens in the public arena. She presents the narratives of girls and boys about their experience of sexual harassment in schools and finds parallels with cases documented in court records and depositions. While highly publicized lawsuits and civil rights cases may have increased public awareness of the issue, inconsistent findings have sent educators mixed messages about ways of dealing with peer-to-peer sexual harassment. The antecedents of harassment, she suggests, are found in teasing and bullying, behaviors tacitly accepted by parents and teachers. Stein makes a case for deliberate adult intervention and the inclusion of a curriculum in schools that builds awareness of these issues.
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