Re-examining Student Peer Educator Roles in Gender-Based Sexual Violence Prevention: Perspectives from U.S. and Canadian Postsecondary Contexts

• In Event: Sites of Gender Learning: Education, Media, and the Politics of Justice

Proposal

Gender-based sexual violence (GBSV) remains a pernicious social problem among and beyond global postsecondary institutions (PSI), threatening students’ safety, wellbeing, and academic success. Survivors face myriad acute and chronic psychological impacts and threats to academic performance and continuity (Stermac, 2020; Molstad et al., 2021).
PSIs sometimes recruit, train, and deploy student peer educators or advocates (PeerEds), supporting fellow students on various health and wellness topics. Though peer education has been common since the 1960s, there isn’t a standard role description or records of how many and which institutions have them (Southgate & Aggleton, 2017; Penney, 2018), nor much research beyond anecdotal evidence pertaining to their experiences and benefits derived from service (Fields & Copp, 2015, Wawrzynski, 2018). GBSV PeerEds’ prevention-focused activities may generally include disseminating policy information, developing workshops, panels, individual meetings, etc. Their responsive support to survivors may include providing referrals to support resources, accompanying them to appointments with counselors or physicians, attending investigative meetings for moral support, etc.

Research suggests survivors are much more likely to disclose their experience to peers rather than service providers such as medical staff or police (Orchowski & Gidycz, 2012, Allen et al., 2015, Ullman et al., 2020). Moreover, student survivors disclosing to campus administrators often experience negative and/or retraumatizing impacts and other institutional betrayals, adversely affecting their mental health, even leading to suicidal ideation and/or attrition (Smith & Freyd, 2013; Mathieu & Poisson, 2014). Previous research suggests students serving in PeerEd roles can be more effective than professional staff in conveying health and wellbeing related information given their resonance in sharing the college-going experience together (White et al., 2009). Such familiarity can elicit trust for more comfortable and candid discussions about sensitive personal matters as sex, sexuality, and consent (Wawrzynski et al., 2011).

This paper reports on an exploratory study focused on perspectives and experiences of students in PeerEd roles with the goal of informing and reinvigorating educational research and practical guidance regarding utilizing peer educators within PSI’s GBSV prevention and response strategies.

Findings from this study were organized along four thematic strands that will be elaborated during the presentation:

A. Motivations to Pursue this Role and Work

Various influences shaped participants’ interest and commitment in this work, but most invoked personal or friends’ experiences of sexual violence as inspirations. For example, Chloe (26, CDN) cited a sexual assault during her first year at another institution:

"...as I slowly began to disclose what had happened…I very quickly began to reflect, through counseling, about the lack of education…being done from a peer-to-peer level; oftentimes, it was very institutionally directed, in the sense that it was like, "Don't do this. This is our policy. There will be bad things that will happen to you if you assault somebody." And I didn't think that that got to the root cause of it."

B. Living the Role and Doing the Work

Participants’ personal connections to GBSV varied, though most reported direct experience while some were inspired by campus activities. For instance, Kaleisha (CDN) worked in the dean of student’s office at her previous college and became an orientation leader, receiving training about receiving disclosures and referral to campus resources. Describing herself as a “big proponent of making sure everybody’s happy in whetever they’re choosing to engage in” and being regarded as the “mom of the group” due to often debriefing with roommates after dates and breakups and prioritizing sex positivity:

"With this work I have a plethora of different resources I tend to give out…I'd rather everybody be incredibly safe, so I have all the condoms. I've developed the moniker of the anal expert because I've taught people how to do it safely and [produced a video] about how to engage in anal play safely so they’ve kind of taken me on as the “I'll ask her questions because she knows a lot” [person]."

C. Personal Impacts of Service as GBSV PeerEds

General research about peer educators affirms its personal benefits for incumbents (Ebreo et al., 2002, Dennett & Azar, 2011). For example, Charlotte (CDN) lauded its normalizing experience following her own assault, explaining it “definitely helped stabilize [me in] my own situation and [to] be able to have like a high degree of functioning.” The role involves research, helping her feel “less of a statistic” and that “my story matters as much as anyone else’s…it has helped me tell my story to people.” Chloe (CA) likewise felt “like I was taking a great deal of power back that had been taken from me, in the sense that campus had felt, or had become, a very unsafe place for me.”

D. GBSV PeerEd Perceptions of Their Campus Impact

While more research is needed to ascertain the scope of GBSV PeerEd programs, content, and effectiveness (including defining that), one apparent affordance is increased and inexpensive personnel and labor (Williams, 2011). Brianna (US) explained that prior to the PeerEd program, there was limited professional staff delivering workshops, especially in demand by the fraternity and sorority program.

"...those chapters [have] hundreds and hundreds of students...I think our sexual health specialist at one time had eight workshops in one week, and that was horrific. I can't imagine the amount of stress she was under, so just being able to allow our team to have that flexibility [and] also because our team increased in capacity."

That the peer educators tend to be women, racialized people, and/or sexual minorities—overrepresenting student subpopulations with the highest rates of trauma histories and risk (Lipson, 2018; Pellicane & Ciesla, 2023)—calls for examining socio-structural coercion of emotional labour among GBSV PeerEds, and trauma-informed practices to foster agency and restorative impacts for the PeerEds and their constituents.

Given the enduring obstinance of GBV incidence rates among collegians, this study can inform new directions in research and reforms in practices to prevent and respond to sexual coercion and violence that perpetually threatens—and often upends—PSE student access, persistence, success, completion, and subversion of knowledge creation by graduates.

Author

• Jason Laker, San Jose State University