The cynic in me was not surprised to find that young women in Mozambique experienced sexual harassment in schools. I had thought carefully about this eventuality prior to setting out to Mozambique to gather data for my doctoral study on HIV- and AIDS-related education, and the possible action I might take if and when confronted with a situation such as this. What did take me by surprise was the extent to which the young men were put away as inherently unreliable. It seemed they were, to paraphrase one research participant not really worth ‘speaking about’. Young women and men appeared to be firmly stuck between a ‘rock and a hard place’. In a setting such as this, the potential impact of HIV prevention education seems rather questionable. Read the full story

As a practicing middle school English Language Arts teacher and researcher in the Northeastern US, I am interested in the stories adolescents tell about their lives. To this end, my research in classrooms is ethnographic and privileges the stories girls tell about their experiences of being marginalized, silenced, and punished, often by other girls. One story in particular has resonated with me, and I have come to refer to this story as “The Story of the Sluts” – thus named, however crudely, because that is how the story was presented to me by the girls who told it. It all came about when Lily (a pseudonym), an eighth grade student, was meeting with me during a writing conference about revisions for a short story she was writing in my class. During this writing conference, it came out that a party had taken place the previous weekend. Lily explained that two of my other students, Melanie and Kelly, had gone ‘into the woods’ with two boys who also attended our school. Read the full story

GEA’s policy officer, Miriam David, coordinated our response to the UK government’s current consultation on Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and Sex and Relationships Education (SRE). Read the full story

On the 15^th October the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) organisation called upon the Coalition Government to urgently address the “alarming levels” of sexual harassment and violence against young women in schools. Their YouGov 2010 online survey of 788 16-18 year olds found that a third (29%) of young women reported unwanted sexual touching at school and witnessed routine sexual name-calling on a daily or twice-weekly basis. Over a quarter (28%) said they had seen sexual pictures on mobile phones at school twice a month or more. In the same month, Girl Guiding UK continued to fight the sexualisation of girl culture by delivering a 25,000 signature petition to Downing Street calling for the Government to introduce compulsory labelling for all airbrushed images. This concern addressed the findings from their Girls’ Attitudes Survey, in which 50% of the girls reported that they would consider having surgery to change their looks and more than half had been bullied for their appearance. Indeed, the impact of ‘sexualisation’ upon girls and young women has become the subject of high profile controversial reports and inquiries from a number of government and non-governmental bodies (Home Office 2010). Read the full story

12 – 14 October, 2010 Room Temcas, T-House, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

In Violences and Silences the focus will be on the role of silences and silencing, shame and blaming for maintaining violence. In this vein, an important part of the conference is to explore ways of expanding the concept of “perpetrator”, and discussions on intervention strategies will be based on including such possible mechanisms. Read the full story