Date of Defense

3-31-1999

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Dr. Nancy Cornwell

Second Advisor

Dr. Steven Rhodes

Third Advisor

Dr. Mark Orbe

Abstract

Sexual harassment in academia parallels similar behaviors in organizational settings. Much of the previous literature supports the idea that females are the primary targets of sexual harassment and that they rate behaviors as more harassing and more inappropriate than their male classmates. Given this paradigm, it was hypothesized that females would perceive professor behaviors as more harassing than their male counterparts. A convenience sample of 342 undergraduate students, 255 females (74.6%) and 87 males (25.4%), were asked to rate the extent to which they felt 12 ambiguous professor-student interactions represented sexually harassing behavior. Results indicated significant differences in perceptions of what constitutes sexually harassing behavior between two demographic groups: female and male and gender sensitive and gender insensitive.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Campus Only

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