Finding Their Own Way: Understanding Campus Sexual Assault Survivors’ Agency

• In Event: Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Division J Section 6 Poster Session

Abstract

This paper presents a study of agency among female college students who have experienced sexual violence. Interviews are the primary data source and the following research questions are addressed: 1) What are the forms of college women’s agency in the period following campus sexual assault and/or rape? 2) What are factors shaping or constraining college women’s agency that emerge from the narratives of women students who have experienced sexual assault and/or rape? The findings of this research serve to reframe the way that responses to campus sexual violence are understood in both scholarship and practice. The results of this study can also inform local, institutional, state and federal policies as they relate to students who have experienced sexual transgressions.

Authors

• Lauren Jean Germain, University of Virginia

• Brian Pusser, University of Virginia