Drs. Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele published their recent paper titled, "Changing the Hidden Curriculum of Campus Rape Prevention and Education: Women’s Self-Defense as a Key Protective Factor for a Public Health Model of Prevention” in the October issue of the peer-reviewed journal Trauma, Violence & Abuse. Below is an abstract for this important paper:
Recent activist, policy, and government efforts to engage in campus rape prevention education (RPE), culminating in the 2014 White House Task Force recommendations to combat campus sexual assault, prompt a need to examine the concept of “prevention” in the context of sexual assault on U.S. college campuses and their surrounding community service agencies. This paper reviews previous research on effective resistance to sexual assault, showing that self-defense is a well-established protective factor in a public health model of sexual assault prevention. The article goes on to show, through an examination of campus rape prevention efforts framed as “primary prevention,” that self-defense is routinely excluded. This creates a hidden curriculum that preserves a gender status quo even while it strives for change. The article concludes with recommendations for how administrators, educators, facilitators, funding agencies, and others can incorporate self-defense into campus RPE for a more effective, data-driven set of sexual assault prevention efforts.
To learn about this research and Dr. McCaughey's work, follow this link to an article published by ASU News: Campus Sexual Assault Prevention.
