American Association Of University Women Research Articles

Identifying the Current Status of Women in Entomology, Clarifying Initiatives for Retention, and Speaking out to Share Experience: Summary

The Women in Entomology Symposium at the 2011 Annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting was a success. With the help of sponsors, we implemented several innovations that increased attendance and the overall impact of the symposium. First and foremost, we worked with the meeting organizers to coordinate the timing of our symposium so that Ms. Christianne Corbett, a research associate at the American Association of University Women and author of Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, could attend and so the symposium was closely aligned with her plenarypresentation, her lunch and learn, and the Women in Entomology breakfast. Close coordination of all these events helped to increase the impact of each one. To increase attendance at our symposium but also bring attention to the other Women in Entomology events, we created and distributed a flyer that listed all Women in Entomologyrelated meeting events. We built excitement and interaction during the symposium by giving away five copies of Kim Todd's Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. This book was discussed in Gail Kampmeier's presentation on Great Women in Entomology. Also, we promoted and branded the symposium by distributing stickers and M&Ms with our Women In Entomology logo, created by Rayda Krell. These stickers became a sought-after commodity at the meeting. To promote the free exchange of ideas and encourage networking, we hosted a post-symposium reception with free food and beverages. Last but not least, we wanted to increase the impact of the symposium even after the meeting was over. To that end, we arranged to have nearly all the presentations recorded for future access. Attendance throughout the symposium was high, but more importantly. the ideas exchanged and enthusiasm it inspired were phenomenal. In addition to what we learned during the symposium, we came away with some overall conclusions and action items to pursue. One of the key needs we identified was for mentorship. Consequently, we will work with ESA to develop an effective mentorship program. We envision a system in which potential mentors can enter information about their career history and relevant life experiences, and then potential mentees can search for a mentor who has traveled down a career path similar to what they are pursuing or find someone who has faced challenges similar to their own. For the mentorship program to be successful, it should be simple and, for the most part, self-sustaining. Another action item was the realization that we need to recog-

Cyberfeminists at Play: Lessons on Literacy and Activism from a Girls' Computer Camp

In an early advertisement for the Apple II, a white man sits at the kitchen table intent on his computing task, looking lovingly at his machine, while his wife cuts vegetables near the kitchen sink and looks lovingly at her husband. Although the computer itself is certainly dated—an historic relic when compared to today’s mobile devices—the gender roles surrounding the use of these tools are admittedly less so. As demonstrated in the more recent Apple campaign where a cool, hip young manas-Mac constantly one-ups an uncool, unhip aging man-as-PC, computers are more often than not portrayed in the media as a “guy thing.” Certainly, women are portrayed as users of technology in the larger culture, but as a number of scholars have suggested, the use of various technologies has had a “deskilling” impact, with women potentially “excluded from a knowledge of the overall process of which they are a part” (Murray 98) or stereotyped as a result of that use. Cheris Kramarae’s classic collection Technology and Women’s Voices suggests that everyday technologies, from the telephone to the washing machine, have both helped and hindered women’s material conditions. Yet male technology use is also stereotyped. Ask a group of students for an image associated with the term “computer geek,” and they’ll describe the typical male student with glasses, alone with his machine. A Google image search for the term yields similar visual results, and additional male stereotypes appear when one does a similar search using the term “gamer.” Given such stereotypes, it’s no surprise that according to the American Association of University Women’s (AAUW) 2000 publication Tech-Savvy, girls begin to lose interest in technology around the middle school years—and not only because of the perception of social isolation associated with computers. In their foreword to Tech-Savvy, the AAUW asks a compelling question: “What changes are needed in the computer culture to improve its image, repair its deficits, and make it more appealing to girls and women?” (iv). That such culture isn’t as appealing to girls and women is perhaps most evident from statistics documenting the limited

Why so long?

Why so long?

From the Science Policy Blog

Science Insider reported this week on a new report on women in science by the American Association of University Women that distills several recent reports on gender equity to provide a road map for those seeking improvements, among other stories.

The Problem of Boys' Literacy Underachievement: Raising Some Questions

that boys perform less well than girls on literacy benchmark or standardized tests. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress (2009), female students consistently score higher than boys on average in both read ing and writing. This trend is supported by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test results. In 2006, the largest gender gap was found in reading. Girls on average outperformed boys in this area in all of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (OECD, 2007). Test scores and achievement gaps such as the ones described here have been used to create a sense of moral panic concerning boys' literacy skills and engagement (Hall & Coles, 2001; Rowan, Knobel, Bigum, & Lankshear, 2002). In this paper, we express some concerns about the ways in which boys' literacy underachievement is defined and taken up within a context that con tinues to represent all boys as victims or as the new disadvantaged (Epstein, Elwood, Hey, & Maw, 1998; Lingard & Douglas, 1999; Rowan et al, 2002). We argue for the need to engage with literature and analytic perspectives that are capable of addressing the complex interplay between various social, cultural, and institutional factors?such as gender, social class, race, ethnic ity, and sexuality?that affect both boys' and girls' engagement with literacy (see American Association of University Women [AAUW], 2008; Martino, 2008a). We also draw attention to the implications associated with move ments to reclaim schooling as a masculine domain and suggest pedagogical rather than structural reforms (see Alloway, Freebody, Gilbert, & Muspratt, 2002; Hammett & Sanford, 2008; Lingard, Martino, & Mills, 2009; Martino & Kehler, 2007). 356

Learning to See Inequity in Science

Learning to See Inequity in Science

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence

Gender Risks and Education: The Particular Classroom Challenges for Urban Low-Income African American Boys

A fundamental consideration in discourses on risk and schooling for primary and ^LjLsecondary school-age students focuses on gender inequalities in the classroom. Gender equity in education debates have raged for several decades and so remain an enduring concern of educators and researchers across the nation (Klein, Kramarae, & Richardson, 2007). Gender politics in classrooms, in teaching, and in teacher training have been accorded minimal to no attention by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and other educational policies. The blindness of NCLB, toward an approach best characterized by its devil and/or god in the details, still sends parents, educators, and researchers battling over how much gender matters and how much these issues go unaddressed throughout the school day. A recent report by the American Association of University Women found no disadvantage toward boys in American education, and it discredited the niyth that boys are receiving less attention and less schooling as compared to that of girls (Corbett, Hill, & St. Rose, 2008). This report was in response to a pendulum swing in the field from the earlier position that girls were disadvantaged, particularly in math and science skills development. Gender war debates have used individual studies to document disadvantage on both ends. However, a consistent review of the literature tends to point to one challenging reality namely, that gender may be too broad a category in critically examining the more challenging problems of educational equity or in developing future training, programs, and policies to ameliorate educational risk for students in primary and secondary schools (Dee, 2005). We take issue with a broad definition of risk within the context of gender because it tends to focus on a universalism that masks subgroups of students at greatest risk

The War against Boys: Has It Ended?

The war against boys has not ended. But it is a lot less ferocious these days. And boys have more allies than ever before. In the early nineties when I began research for the Wir Against Boys, few educators or journalists were talking about boys' academic deficits. There were no books like The Dangerous Book for Boys on the bestseller list. And there certainly were no conferences like this one on behalf of young men I am very impressed with your director, Tom Golden- and to all of you- for making this event happen. Let me briefly describe what it was like to be writing on behalf of boys ten or fifteen years ago The nation was in the grips of a full scale crisis . Scholars at Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Wellesley Center for Research and activists at the American Association of University Women (AAUW) had launched a wildly successful movement to rescue the allegedly shortchanged and demoralized American girl Girls definitely needed some special attention in math and science- and there was a need to get more of them interested in sports. But what emerged from this movement was a false picture of confused, silenced, diminished and forlorn girls, struggling to survive. This picture would be drawn again and again with added details and increasing urgency. Reviving Ophelia was by far the most successful of the girl-crisis books It was on the best-seller list for months. It described the lives of American girls in the language of catastrophe. Here is a passage from Reviving Ophelia: Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves. They crash and burn. (1994, p. 19) But contrary to the story conveyed in Reviving Ophelia, and many other books just like it, by the early 1990's American girls were flourishing in unprecedented ways. To be sure, some were crashing and burning in a psychological Bermuda triangle. But the vast majority of girls were occupied in more constructive ways, moving ahead of boys in the primary and secondary grades, applying to college in record numbers, filling the more challenging academic classes, joining sports teams, and generally enjoying more freedoms and opportunities than any young women in human history. Girls were not in crisis. If anything, the early nineties marked the beginning of a kind of Golden Age in girls' education. It was boys, not girls, who were on the fragile side of the education gap. But that was not the conventional wisdom at the time. The allegedly low state of America's girls moved the United States Congress to pass the Gender Equity Act in 1994, categorizing girls as an under-served population on a par with discriminated-against minorities. Millions of dollars in grants were awarded to study the plight of girls and learn how to cope with the alleged insidious bias against them. Girl Power! Movements flourished throughout the country. We took our daughters to work, and at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, members of the American delegation presented the educational and psychological deficits of American girls as a pressing human rights issue. By the way, academics like Caryl Rivers at Boston University and Susan Bailey at the Wellesley Center criticize some of us who advocate for boys for overstating our case. Where were these sticklers for moderation when the girl crisis was spinning out of control? (I will take up the question about overstating our case in a moment.) Well, what finally slowed down the Girl-crisis parade? I would like to think that books like mine and Michael Gurian's and Warren Farrell's helped slow things down. Maybe they did: but the real threat to the girl crisis movement was simple reality. Reality has a way of getting noticed. The underachievement of American boys compared to girls is impossible not to see. Teachers were seeing it before their eyes day after day in the classroom. …

Perceptions of Gender Differences in the Expression of Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities

Abstract Few resources identify specific needs and interventions for girls with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD). This qualitative analysis asks fifteen teacher and counselor professionals about their perceptions of girls with EBD through semi-structured interviews. Six emergent themes from the analysis are discussed. The results demonstrate that further research is needed in the areas of understanding the hidden nature of girls' issues, girls' minority status in special education, girls' physical behaviors, and girls' unique peer issues. Additionally, issues of the language used to describe girls with EBD and professionals' perceptions of the difficulty of working with troubled girls are considered. ********** In working with teachers and administrators in the field of emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD), the comment is often heard, "I really think girls are somehow more difficult to work with than boys." While not universal, this sentiment is echoed in the writings of Baines and Alder (1999), Chesney-Lind and Okamoto (2000), and internationally in the field of juvenile justice (see Artz, 2005 for a discussion). How does this perception influence teachers' understanding of the needs of girls with EBD? The present exploratory qualitative study of professionals' perceptions of working with girls with EBD provides an in-depth portrait from a 15-person sample. Through examining the perceptions of a small group of teachers and counselors, this study begins to identify teacher education issues and provides suggestions for future interventions studies for girls with EBD. Unique Needs of Girls Many researchers have discussed the unique needs of girls in our society. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) (1992, 1998) has published reports discussing the inherent bias in schools against girls. Published literature from the field of education highlights the learning differences between girls and boys (Gurian & Ballew, 2003) as well as the differing relationships teachers have with each gender (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). In the field of psychology, researchers have investigated: (1) girls' unique developmental needs especially during adolescence (Gilligan, 1993; Orenstein, 1994); (2) social/relational aggression (Crick & Zahn-Waxler; Underwood, 2003); and (3) unique manifestations of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Conduct Disorder, and Mood Disorders (see Bell, Foster, & Mash, 2005 for a discussion). In the field of juvenile justice, researchers cite the need for gender responsive programming as the number of females in the corrections systems grows (Bloom, Owen, Deschenes, & Rosenbaum, 2002). In popular literature, girls in groups are being analyzed for the undetected aggression of "mean" or "queen" girls (Simmons, 2002). Few resources, however, whether conceptual or research based, deal directly with girls and behavior in education or girls identified as having an emotional or behavioral disability. Girls with EBD Research pertaining to special education programming for girls with EBD is considerably rare (Cullinan, Osborne, & Epstein, 2004; Kann & Hanna, 2000; Vardill & Calvert, 2000). Girls with emotional disturbance make up 15% to 25% of all identified children and adolescents with disabilities (Cullinan et al., 2004). Though national data compiled in the Annual Report to Congress on special education is not classified by gender, state data reveals large variation in the numbers of girls identified with emotional and behavioral disorders (Oswald, 2005). Interestingly, the rate of identification for girls begins to increase during adolescence and reflects that of boys during adolescence (Callahan, 1994; Oswald, Best, Coutinho, & Nagle, 2003). A myriad of factors contribute to the underidentification of girls for EBD services. Kann and Hanna (2000) posit that the existing processes and tools used in schools to identify girls with EBD may not accurately detect girls' internalizing expressions of disabilities. …

Background Checks and Fingerprinting in Public School Systems

Data collected by the American Association of University Women indicated that students who arevictims of educator sexual misconduct reported that they suffered emotional, educational, anddevelopmental or health effects (Shakeshaft, 2004). At least one third of students reported behaviorsthat would negatively affect academic achievement. Larry Lezotte, Wilbur Brookeover, and RonEdmonds found in their research that a safe and orderly environment was one lead indicator of schooleffectiveness, defined by high student achievement for all students (Lezotte, 2000). Therefore, if weknow that a safe and orderly environment is essential to an effective school and we know that incidentsof sexual misconduct by teachers against students are occurring, then it seems reasonable to questionwhether the current safeguards used by states are sufficient to ensure a safe and orderly environmentfor all students.

Candace Eleanor Genovese: Memoriam, In Exaltation, and Dolor

She, with customary modesty, left a mere 21-line obituary in which she named her parents, her husband, their children and spouses, their locations, and the number of her grandchildren. She cited her interest in modern history, genealogy, and organizations she had assisted and stated that her ashes would be buried in Wellesley; in Chatham, Ontario; and in Toronto. But there is so much more to tell! national newspaper of Canada, the Globe and Mail, as well as the Boston Globe, carried articles on her remarkable career. Her son, Steven, provides a blog at http://celeanorgenovese.blogstream.com/. Eleanor Genovese served as Managing Editor of this journal with painstaking competence, deep interest, and innovative intelligence for seven years, although first listed as Assistant Editor beginning with the January 1989 issue. She participated in every aspect of the work entailed in its production. Her talents for organizing and recording the data on the movement of manuscripts through the mill of publishing were critically required. In keeping with a shared view of how the world should function, we had equal (minimum wage) salaries. She had always worked hard for women's causes, such as raising money for scholarships through the American Association of University Women, and in the reading and sorting out the over 1,000 entries to the Justice for Homemakers--Babson-Bernays Competition, which now reside in the Schlesinger Library. It was fitting that the flags on the Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women's College in India flew at half-mast and that the Massachusetts Senate adjourned in her honor after her untimely death due to failures of medical personnel: there is a Genovese Room at the Indian college, and it is no accident that the Graduate School at Babson College became co-ed to lead the whole college to this enlightened status while I, her husband, served as dean and founder. Her talents had been instilled and enhanced by her devoted parents, Candace Crafts Moorhouse, a patient and dedicated teacher of children with special needs, and Douglas Moorhouse, farmer, foreman, journalist, and chief turnkey of Essex County Gaol in Windsor, Ontario, and a dedicated Dickens scholar. Eleanor's weekly trips with her father to the library allowed her only three books, which she usually finished on the way home. Three books a week and many magazines were about her weekly quota for the rest of her life. She was an eclectic and voracious reader, often polishing off the entire efforts of a newly discovered and now favored author. A detective story was devoured in two hours. She was an interesting and constant tutor to friends and family. On a personal note, I was introduced to a vivacious beautiful redhead by mutual friends on December 9, 1940 at a spot I can indicate on the Hart House side of University College of the University of Toronto. I walked her home to her residence on Bloor Street ever so slowly and arranged a first date, during which I told her we were to be married. It was gratifying to find a bookmark in a book of poetry on her bedside table marking Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. first stanza reads: Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, hills and fields, That woods, or steepy mountain yields. This was my proposal to Eleanor, and she did, and we did. I think she married me because I did what was so beautifully advised in South Pacific: Once you have found her, never let her go! Dean of Women of Victoria College informed her that she had more late leaves than any other girl in the college! Before we moved to Massachusetts, Eleanor taught high school in Canada and worked for the Ontario Department of Education and for the Executive and Professional Branch of the Canadian Employment Service. She was a Great Books discussion leader, and gave adult education courses in world affairs. …

CHRISTINA GREENE. Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2005. Pp. xviii, 366. Cloth $59.95, paper $19.95

This book is a valuable treatment of women's participation in the black freedom movement. Christina Greene presents a sweeping examination of activism in the city that sociologist E. Franklin Frazier named “the capital of the black middle-class.” She integrates the complex issues of gender, race, and class into the legacy of African American women's community work in the modern freedom movement. Greene analyzes the activism of several generations of low-income and middle-class black and white women demonstrating how it shaped the struggle for black freedom. The author argues that local, low-income community activists were the primary agents of change. Her gendered perspective adds another dimension to the history of black Americans and demands that we rethink the post-World War II struggle for economic and social justice. Prior to World War II, working-class women joined the Parent Teaches Association (PTA), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), literary clubs, and churches. By the 1950s African American women were insisting on membership in mainstream, organizations such as the Young Women's Christian Association, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (p. 4). The new solidarity of black and white women in a city about to embark on a black direct action movement was an accomplishment (p. 61).

Preface to the special issue

Why are there fewer women in careers related to math, science, and technology? Why does this phenomenon appear robust across a number of countries? Why, despite a concentration of research into this question over the last 25 years, and numerous policy documents and educational efforts, do we still see gendered representation in these careers in the 21st century? Although women have been making gains in entering traditionally male-dominated professions, and in entering the workforce in general, gender differences persist. Females are both less likely to choose careers in those fields, and also to leave them if they do enter them (American Association of University Women, 1993; National Center for Education Statistics, 1997; National Science Foundation, 1999). A resurgence of interest into the question has been prompted in part by a general shortage of people entering so-called ‘‘STEM’’ careers (in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). At the same time, researchers concerned with gender equity have continued to question the reasons for women’s lower representation in STEM. Ever since Lucy Sells voiced social concerns about lower female participation in math courses in her identification of math as the ‘‘critical filter’’ limiting access to many high-status high-income careers (Sells, 1980), others have also argued that many females prematurely restrict their educational and career options by discontinuing their mathematical training in high school or soon after (Bridgeman & Wendler, 1991; Heller & Parsons, 1981; Lips, 1992; Meece, Wigfield, & Eccles, 1990). A major impetus for our Special Issue was to draw together researchers who are each utilizing multi-wave longitudinal data to address this central issue from a variety of perspectives. A unique feature of this Special Issue is our inclusion of studies that represent multiple waves of longitudinal data. Rather than speculating about how processes may unfold over time to produce certain outcomes, longitudinal studies allow us to draw strong conclusions regarding those processes, and to tease apart and test out a range of theoretical models. Empirical bases are large-scale longitudinal

Journeys Through the Life and Music of Nancy Van de Vate (review)

BIOGRAPHY Journeys Through the Life and Music of Nancy Van de Vate. By Laurdella Foulkes-Levy and Burt J. Levy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005. [xi, 393 p. ISBN 0-8108-5135-0. $69.95.] Music examples, index, bibliography, works list, compact disc. During her lifetime, Nancy Van de Vate has been a composer, teacher, performer, spouse, mother, women's rights advocate, author, and co-founder of a record company. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on 30 December 1930, Van de Vate has accomplished much in her seventy-four years. She has composed over one hundred thirty works, currently focusing on opera and musical theater. Among her many honors are fellowships, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Austrian Foreign Ministry, the City of Vienna, and the American Association of University Women. She was a resident fellow at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and Ossabaw Island in the United States, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, Brahmshaus in Germany, and the Kunstlerhaus in Switzerland. Her piece, Chernobyl, was nominated for the 1989 Koussevitzky International Recording Award as best new work by a living composer and for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, and her orchestral music has received Pulitzer and Grawemeyer nominations. In addition, she has contributed articles to Musical America, The International Musician, The Instrumentalist, Symphony News, as well as other professional periodicals. Van de Vate has led a productive life, presenting lectures and master classes in Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the United States, and China. Having experienced gender discrimination throughout her career, she fought tirelessly for women's rights. For example, she started the Knoxville Chapter of the National Organization for Women in 1971 and founded The League of Women Composers in 1975. In 1994, she received dual Austrian and American citizenship, a privilege rarely approved by the Austrian government, because of her accomplishments as a composer. Starting her own recording company (Vienna Modern Masters) with her second husband, Clyde Smith, allowed her the opportunity to produce her own recordings. In fact, it has been stated that Van De Vate is one of the most recorded living composers of orchestral music. Similarly, to publish her scores, Van de Vate and Smith founded a company in 1989, the BMI publisher, Vienna Masterworks, and in 1997 an ASCAP publisher, Vienna Modern Composers. Several of her pieces were issued by Arsis Press and Sisra Publications in the early 1980s, but the majority of her works were self-published. The idea for Journeys Through the Life and Music of Nancy Van de Vate began in the early 1990s when Van de Vate and Smith decided to publish the story of her career. They felt it was important to document her tumultuous life (as described in the publisher's press release). After Smith died of cancer in 1999, Van de Vate was urged to contact Laurdella Foulkes-Levy, assistant professor of music at the University of Mississippi (where Van de Vate received her MMus in 1958). …

Deciding to Forgo College: Non-College Attendees’ Reflections on Family, School, and Self

This article, based on work funded by the American Association of University Women, examines how personal and environmental factors shape non-college attendees’ decisions to forgo college directly after high school. Group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 48 racially diverse recent high school graduates (27 men and 21 women) who had not attended any 2-year or 4-year college since completing high school. All graduated from public high schools in Los Angeles, California, and were between 18 and 21 years of age at the time that were interviewed. Findings highlight study participants’ current pursuits, their perspectives on college, the factors that influenced their post-high school life decisions (particularly home and school environments), and their reflections on whether they would do anything differently given the opportunity to turn back time. Considered within Persell's multidimensional framework, the findings lend support to the combined effects of societal, institutional, interactional, and intrapsychic variables in producing differential educational outcomes and post-high school life paths. Especially noteworthy is the transcendent effect across race, gender, and socioeconomic status of efficacy beliefs in shaping educational choices.

Deciding to Forgo College: Non-College Attendees’ Reflections on Family, School, and Self

This article, based on work funded by the American Association of University Women, examines how personal and environmental factors shape non-college attendees’ decisions to forgo college directly after high school. Group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 48 racially diverse recent high school graduates (27 men and 21 women) who had not attended any 2-year or 4-year college since completing high school. All graduated from public high schools in Los Angeles, California, and were between 18 and 21 years of age at the time that were interviewed. Findings highlight study participants’ current pursuits, their perspectives on college, the factors that influenced their post-high school life decisions (particularly home and school environments), and their reflections on whether they would do anything differently given the opportunity to turn back time. Considered within Persell's multidimensional framework, the findings lend support to the combined effects of societal, institutional, interactional, and intrapsychic variables in producing differential educational outcomes and post-high school life paths. Especially noteworthy is the transcendent effect across race, gender, and socioeconomic status of efficacy beliefs in shaping educational choices.

Braving the Bullies

Braving the Bullies

Psychological Consequences for High School Students of Having Been Sexually Harassed

The psychological and educational consequences of sexual harassment for high school students were investigated in two studies. Both studies involved a modified survey originally designed for the American Association of University Women (1993). In Study 1, which involved 760 male and 779 female high school students (mainly 16- to 19-year-olds), we compared the behaviors and attitudes of (a) students who had recently been harassed and were upset by it, and (b) students who had not been harassed. Harassment led to several negative psychological and educational consequences rather than to a general stress reaction. Consequences varied with the type of harassment experienced. In Study 2, we surveyed 30 male and 67 female university students who were enrolled in a 1st year psychology course. We found that current doubt about romantic relations was associated with two types of harassment experienced during high school. Thus, some specific consequences of harassment might be long-lasting.

Responding to Sexual Harassment in Special Education Settings

harassment permeates the culture of American schools. The majority of students report that they have experienced sexual harassment (American Association of University Women [AAUW], 1993, 2001; Dupper & Meyer-Adams, 2002; Shakeshaft et al., 1995; Stein, 1995, 1999; see box, “What Does the Literature Say?”). Few articles about sexual harassment and students with disabilities have appeared in the research literature (Stein, 1999), though our experience shows that sexual harassment occurs among all populations of students. Students with disabilities may lack the social skills and impulse control (Kavale & Forness, 1996) necessary to avoid participating in behavior associated with sexual harassment. These students may also lack the awareness of how their comments and actions affect others. School personnel may have questions about how to appropriately address student behavior that violates the school’s sexual harassment policy, but is related in some way to the student’s identified disability. We must balance the rights of all children to a safe and positive educational environment while also maintaining the rights of students with disabilities. Legal issues related to sexual harassment and special education suggest that special education teachers and administrators must understand what sexual harassment is, how it affects different people, and how to implement appropriate interventions and responses. This article shows how educators can deal with issues of sexual harassment, foster positive social behavior, and support a caring environment that facilitates student achievement.