Doctoral Engineering Students’ Sexual Harassment Experiences and Sexual Harassment Climate Perceptions

• In Event: Understanding Disparities and Imagining Justice: Explorations Across the Professions

Abstract

Sexual harassment (SH) remains a pervasive problem in academic STEM, particularly within engineering doctoral programs, where institutional tolerance and disciplinary norms exacerbate risks for students. This qualitative study explores the SH experiences and perceptions of SH climate (or institutional tolerance for SH) among engineering PhD students. Combining an intersectional approach with an integrative climate framework, our project centered the voices of students from historically-excluded groups, especially women and queer students, to understand their perceptions of SH experience and climate. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 doctoral students from diverse engineering disciplines and institutions across the US. Participants described experiences of faculty-on-student harassment, as well as student-on-student harassment, and of organizational practices that discouraged students from reporting SH experiences.

Authors

• Nicole M. Else-Quest, University of California - Los Angeles

• Julie Aldridge, The Ohio State University

• So Yoon Yoon, University of Cincinnati