A FIRST OF its kind study in Europe has collected the anecdotal experiences of sexual misconduct in post-primary schools in Ireland and the UK.

The joint study, led by the University of Greenwich with support from University of Galway, Massey University, and Brighton and Sussex Medical School, recruited respondents to participate via various social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Respondents had to be over the age of 18 and the study recruitment via social media post read: “Did you experience any sexually inappropriate comments or behaviour from a teacher during your time in secondary school? Anonymously share your experience in this 5-min survey”.

All respondents took park in the survey because they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or misconduct by a teacher during their time in secondary school.

A total of 593 respondents completed the survey with 224 taking part from Ireland and 369 across the UK.

Among the Irish respondents, 88% identified as a woman, 9% identified as a man, and 3.1% identified as genderqueer or non-conforming.

Of the Irish respondents, 31% were aged 18-34, 26% were 25-34, and 21% were 35-44 at the time they completed the survey.

The remaining sample were aged 45 and over. 

Sexual harassment experiences  

Sexist harassment by a teacher was the most commonly experienced form of misconduct experienced by Irish respondents, with 86% saying they had been treated differently because of their gender.

The second most experienced form of misconduct was sexual harassment, with 72% of Irish respondents stating that they had experienced this.

Common forms of sexual harassment included making offensive remarks about a student’s physical appearance or sexual activity, and making attempts to discuss sexual matters with the student. 

One Irish respondent aged between 18 and 24 described this incident with a male teacher: “He said he heard I’d been a ‘naughty girl’ at the weekend and that he wouldn’t mind seeing ‘that side’ of me.”

Another respondent described how one teacher would make offensive comments regarding their same-sex relationship.

Meanwhile, 10% of Irish respondents said they had experienced unwanted sexual attention from a teacher.

One female Irish respondent aged 25-34 recalled a teacher who would “constantly flirt” with her: “When I left school [he] contacted me and asked me on a date.”

Another female Irish respondent recalled: ““My [topic] teacher was not long graduated and used to always say that if I wasn’t his student things would be very different between us. I was 14.

“He did this for many years, and I never knew how to deal with it. He’d make comments about my body, wink when walking past me etc.”

Among the Irish respondents, 6.7% had also experienced electronic sexual harassment.

A male Irish respondent told the survey: “A teacher who I did not have messaged me on Grindr during school, I blocked him.”

Overall, most respondents reported that the person in question was a male teacher (90%), followed by a female teacher (8%), and 2% reported that they experienced sexual harassment by both a male and female teacher, or another member of school staff whose gender was not disclosed.

Most incidents (88%) took place on school grounds, while 12% took place outside of school, after school, or online.

Reporting incidents

When asked how they reacted to the incident of sexual harassment that had the greatest impact on them, 31% of Irish respondents said they “ignored the teacher and did nothing”.

A quarter said they “treated it like a joke”, 24% “avoided the teacher as much as possible”, and 4.5% “told the teacher to stop”.

The teacher was reported in 0.9% of the instances and 2.7% had “asked someone for advice and/or support”.

Around half of Irish respondents (47.3%) reported that the sexual harassment they experienced had a negative influence on their participation in school or extra-curricular events.

A total of 43 Irish respondents provided qualitative responses to describe how the incident impacted their lives.

For example, one Irish female told of how she “ended up getting grinds and missing his classes where I could” in order to avoid the teacher.

Very few respondents reported the incidents of harassment to the school and there was no indication in the survey responses that any respondents made formal complaints to the gardaí.

Pádraig MacNeela, Senior Lecturer at University of Galway and co-author of the study, said: “This study sheds light on an important issue for the first time.

“It demonstrates that the culture change we need to support in our education settings is wide ranging.

“It includes supporting staff who work in post-primary schools to speak up and address staff-student harassment if they ever encounter it.”

Meanwhile, Kate Dawson, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich and lead author of the study said: “Reporting mechanisms also need to be put in place that enable students, or concerned school staff, to report misconduct without fear of repercussions.

“These preliminary findings need to be investigated further within a larger sample to find out how prevalent this issue is in UK and Irish schools.”