Who is experiencing faculty/staff–student sexual misconduct in UK higher education?

Sexual misconduct perpetrated by staff/faculty in higher education towards students remains underexplored compared to perpetration by peers. The article examines the types of sexual misconduct students in UK higher education experience from staff and differences in experience across groups, drawing on findings from a non-representative survey of students in UK higher education (n=1,768). It opens up a methodological discussion around measuring power-based sexual misconduct, introducing an adapted version of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire that removes references to whether students said no to sexual advances; accounts for how power imbalances affected ability to consent; and incorporates intersectionality. These adaptations aimed to capture the extent to which students experience a sexualised environment – which we label as sexual misconduct – rather than asking whether sexualised behaviours are unwanted.

Data is analysed using a hurdle model, analysing factors that increase likelihood of experiencing sexual misconduct as well as factors that increase the amount of sexual harassment experienced. Findings show that while women were the only group more likely to have experienced sexual misconduct in general, when examining amount of misconduct experienced, women, non-binary students, Asian students, gay/lesbian and bisexual students, first-in-family, and disabled students were all more likely to experience more incidents.