Data shines a light on rape culture in UK colleges

New research from Culture Shift shines a light on the prevalence of rape culture in further education (FE), uncovering one in five male FE students don’t believe having sex with their partner when they really don’t seem into it, but they haven’t explicitly said ‘no,’ would be deemed harassment.

Almost one in five (18%) male FE students also don’t believe letting their friends see sexually explicit photos of the person they’re seeing on their phone is harassment. While more than one in ten (14%) don’t think sharing sexually explicit photos of themself with someone on Snapchat without them expecting it is harassment.

With NUS highlighting 75% of respondents to its survey on sexual violence in FE have had unwanted sexual experiences at least once, the research signals this worrying trend is showing no signs of slowing down.

On the prevalence of toxic cultures in general across the UK’s FE institutions, the research revealed half (49%) of FE students have experienced harassment whilst studying in school or college and three quarters (78%) have witnessed some form of inappropriate behaviour. The vast majority (55%) of FE students also say harassment is common in their school or college, with one in 10 confirming they witness it frequently. Yet only 28% have disclosed details of some form of harassment on behalf of themselves or somebody else.

On racism within Britain’s FE colleges, the data highlighted some further worrying trends. In fact, almost one in five (18%) respondents disagreed that ‘making it known you don’t like people of particular race’ would be classed as harassment. When asked if this was discrimination, 15% of male respondents still disagreed. While more than one in ten (11%) don’t believe laughing with their friends about how dark someone’s skin tone is, is discrimination.

“Our data proves there is a huge disparity amongst college students when it comes to fully understanding what harassment is and its severity. Turning 16 and heading into further education is an incredibly important time, but it’s also a time of great change for many students. For this reason, it’s clear more needs to be done to educate students, so we can work towards creating a society within which it’s clear that problematic behaviour is no longer accepted,” comments Gemma McCall, CEO, Culture Shift.

The research also revealed:

• Females are 22% more likely to experience harassment than male respondents
• People with disabilities are more likely to report experiencing harassment than people without (66% vs. 46%)
• More than two in five (44%) FE students are unable to correctly define harassment and discrimination
• Women are 53% more likely to be able to accurately define harassment than men, while heterosexual students were less likely to be able to correctly define harassment compared to LGBTQ+ respondents
• More than one in ten (14%) males don’t believe flirting with another person by smacking their bum when they’re speaking to their friends is harassment, which drops to 10% amongst females

“Institutions have an important role to play when it comes to ensuring their students aren’t only fully educated on problematic behaviour and the severity of this, but they’re also held accountable for breaching rules around bullying and harassment.

“Beyond this, the data proves students aren’t reporting harassment they either experience themselves or witness. In our experience, this is usually due to fear of repercussions or not being believed. If institutions eliminated this, by enabling those who have experienced or witnessed bullying or harassment, including sexual violence or racism/discrimination, to report anonymously and seek support if they wish, we firmly believe we’ll see real positive change and this trend starting to decline,” concludes Gemma.

For more insights, download Culture Shift’s full ‘the power of leveraging student voices’ report, here: info.culture-shift.co.uk/leveraging-student-voices.

The research

Survey conducted among 1,000 students aged 16+ who are currently studying in further education. In addition, multiple more in-depth focus groups took place to discuss the research findings further.