Gender-based violence in higher education: what impact on students’ university experience? A case study of the University of Geneva

• In Event: Highlighted session: Gender-based violence within educational spaces: Policy, practice and lived experiences of students

Proposal

Within the neoliberal male-dominated model underlying higher education institutions, incidents of GBV are not isolated, but rather the product of a specific culture oriented towards the maintenance of hierarchies of gender (Lewis & Anitha, 2019). Swiss higher education institutions (HEIs) are not an exception to this model, however the lack of research on GBV in Swiss university settings has been an obstacle to the understanding of the scale of this phenomenon in the country, until recent years.

The advent of recent social movements fighting against GBV, both at international and national level, has put GBV in HEIs at the center of the country's public debates. Student groups in different parts of Switzerland have started to mobilize in order to address the lack of data by launching surveys (Chollet & Gilleron, 2019) and collecting testimonies through social media campaigns (Gaitzsch, 2020). Students’ engagement in the fight of GBV in Swiss universities does not come as a surprise. Not only international research has shown that they are the group most affected by this type of violence (Bergeron et al., 2016), but this is even more true within the Swiss context due to their vulnerable position in the Swiss legal system, where only sexual harassment in the workplace is addressed by the Federal Act on Gender Equality (Art.4. GEA). Thus, students experiencing GBV in university settings do not benefit from the same legal protection as other university workers, a situation that further increases their vulnerability.

Students’ actions have provided some more precise insights on the magnitude and characteristics of GBV in Swiss HEIs. For instance, the survey launched at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lausanne showed how experiencing GBV during training had a great impact on the career choices of female students, who were intentionally avoiding some medical branches known for being particularly sexist (Chollet & Gilleron, 2019). These findings were in line with what emerged from recent international studies on GBV in academia carried out in countries such as Canada, (Bergeron et al., 2016) and the UK (NUS, 2011; 2019), which showed the negative impact of GBV on students’ career, particularly in terms of academic orientation, achievement and dropout and revealed how certain factors, such as ethnicity and disability, increase students' exposure to GBV.

My PhD research is inscribed in this context. Carried out through a mixed method sequential approach using an online survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews, my research aims at understanding the scope of student-to-student GBV at the University of Geneva and its intersection with other forms of violence in order to uncover the attitudes and norms that consolidate GBV in the institution and ultimately evaluate the consequences of GBV on students’ career. This last aspect will also be the particular focus of my presentation. By exploring its connection with factors such as the type of violence experienced or the participants’ demographic characteristics, this presentation will propose a preliminary analysis of students’ answers and reflections on how GBV has impacted their university experience.

Author

• Giorgia Magni