Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Students by Teachers

Prevalence

In their 2002 survey, the AAUW reported that, of students who had been harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or other school employees. One survey, conducted with psychology students, reports that 10% had sexual interactions with their educators; in turn, 13% of educators reported sexual interaction with their students. In a survey of high school students, 14% reported that they had engaged in sexual intercourse with a teacher. In a national survey conducted for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000 that roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee between 1991 and 2000. And in a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students have been targeted with sexual attention by school employees. Indeed, sexual harassment and abuse by teachers has been described as 100 times more frequent than abuse by priests.

In Japan, sexual harassment of students by teachers is so prevalent it has been given its own acronym--SHOC, for "Sexual Harassment on Campus."