Sexual Violence and Women’s Education: Examining Academic Performance and Persistence

Lana Stermac
, Jenna Cripps
, Touraj Amiri
, Veronica Badali

Abstract

Sexual violence continues to be a serious problem on university campuses. While the negative psychological and health effects of sexual violence are well known, it is only recently that attention has focused on how these behaviours impact education, particularly women’s education. This study contributes to this area and examined the impact of types of sexual violence on behavioural and attitudinal indicators of academic performance and persistence among students reporting sexual violence. Undergraduate women attending university in Ontario, Canada (N= 934) responded to survey measures of academic performance, attitudes towards education and sexual violence experiences. The results indicate that sexual violence has a deleterious impact on women’s academic performance including and beyond grades. Women students who experienced sexual violence reported more delays and failures on assignments, courses and exams, were more likely to endorse attendance problems and thoughts of dropping out or quitting than students not reporting sexual violence. Type of sexual violence experienced was also related to academic performance.  The results are discussed in terms of the need to understand components of academic performance as well as factors that may contribute to outcomes for students. Findings have implications for intervention and policy development.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Published

2020-05-04



Section

Articles



License

Copyright in the article is vested with the Author under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).


How to Cite

Stermac, L., Cripps, J., Amiri, T., & Badali, V. (2020). Sexual Violence and Women’s Education: Examining Academic Performance and Persistence. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 50(1), 28–39. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v50i1.188601