Adolescents’ experiences of street harassment: creating a typology and assessing the emotional impact

Published date11 February 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-12-2017-0336
Pages38-46
Date11 February 2019
AuthorLucy Betts,Rachel Harding,Sheine Peart,Catarina Sjolin Knight,David Wright,Kendall Newbold
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Aggression, conflict & peace,Sociology,Gender studies,Gender violence,Political sociology, policy & social change,Social conflicts,War/peace
Adolescentsexperiences of street
harassment: creating a typology and
assessing the emotional impact
Lucy Betts, Rachel Harding, Sheine Peart, Catarina Sjolin Knight, David Wright and
Kendall Newbold
Abstract
Purpose Research examining young peoples experiences of harassment has tended to focus on the school
and digital environment. Despite street harassment being identified as a common experience for adult women, very
few studies have explored adolescentsexperiences of street harassment. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach A person-centred analytical approach, based on experienced reporting,
was used to create a typology of street harassment. The reports of street harassment were received from
118 (68 female, 43 male, no gender reported in 7) 11-15-year olds over a 6-8 week period.
Findings Cluster analysis revealed four distinct groups: predominately verbal,non-verbal/non-direct,
other incident, and all forms. Young women and those in the all formsgroup reported experiencing
greater negative emotions following the episode of street harassment. Young men were equally as likely as
young women to report experiencing street harassment.
Originality/value The findings uniquely highlight that adolescents experience distinct types of street
harassment, some of which are associated with negative emotions.
Keywords Adolescents, Eve teasing, Negative emotions, Person centred, Stranger harassment,
Street harassment
Paper type Research paper
Adolescentsexperiences of school bul lying (Olewus, 2013) and di scrimination-based
harassment (Russell et al., 2012) are well documented. However, little is known about young
peoples experiences of harassment outside of the school environment apart from digital
harassment (Kowalski et al., 2014). Logically, young people are likely to experience harassment
in other contexts that are not constrained by these school or digital environments. Despite the
perception that young people are vulnerable and at risk in public spaces from stranger danger
(Francis et al., 2017), and evidence that young people spend reduced time outside because of
perceived fear of strangers (Ding et al., 2012), research has only recently begun to explore how
experiences of bullying influence how Canadian youth travel to school (Cozma et al., 2015).
Although the research by Cozma et al. (2015) focussed on bullying, parallels can be
drawn between this research and studies exploring street h arassment. Stree t harassment
represents unwanted behaviours from strangers that typically occur in public spaces (e.g. in
the street or on public transportation)(Davidson et al., 2016, p. 553). According to Davidson
et al., these behaviour s include: whistli ng; leering; sexi st, homophobic, o r transphobic slu rs;
persistent requests for someones name or number after they have said no; sexual names;
comments; and demands. Therefore, street harassment encompasses seemingly innocent
comments to vulgar s uggestions to outright thr eats which, along with the fe ar these behaviours
generate, led Kissling (1991) to argue that street harassment contributes to a culture of sexual
terrorism(p. 456). Moreover, Kearl (2010) proposed that street harassment represents a
form of bullying behaviour that is motivated by power and disrespect with commonalities
evident in street harassment and bullying behaviours. For example, name calling and
comments are characteristic of verbal bullying (Rivers and Smith, 1994). Despite street
Received 1 December 2017
Revised 8 February 2018
Accepted 8 February 2018
Lucy Betts is an Associate
Professor in Psychology at the
Department of Psychology,
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK.
Rachel Harding, Sheine Peart
and Catarina Sjolin Knight are all
based at the Nottingham Trent
University, Nottingham, UK.
David Wright is a Lecturer at the
School of Arts and Humanities,
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK.
Kendall Newbold is based at
the Nottingham Trent
University, Nottingham, UK.
PAGE38
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JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICTAND PEACE RESEARCH
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VOL. 11 NO. 1 2019, pp. 38-46, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599 DOI 10.1108/JACPR-12-2017-0336

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