Harassment in Colleges: A Bottom-Up Approach

Sexual harassment is a widespread global issue disproportionately affecting women and girls. Beyond its harmful impact on survivors' well-being, recent research has documented substantial economic costs, with women often sacrificing career opportunities for safety—accepting lower wages, choosing longer commutes, or enrolling in lower- ranked universities (Borker, 2021; Adams-Prassl et al., 2024; Folke and Rickne, 2022). Although awareness campaigns have increased reporting and accountability (Levy and Mattsson, 2023; Gauthier, 2022), evidence suggests that without careful design, such campaigns may backfire—leading to victim-blaming and workplace gender segregation (Gertsberg, 2022; Dobbin and Kalev, 2020).

Given that men are typically the perpetrators of harassment, interventions targeting male behavior change may be more effective than those focused solely on victim protection. Yet we have limited evidence on how men respond to harassment-related information. Do participatory approaches outperform traditional information campaigns? Is targeting men and women together more effective than targeting men only?

We propose to develop and pilot a novel, bottom-up intervention to reduce peer-to-peer sexual harassment in college settings. The intervention will compare three approaches: (1) standard awareness training, (2) male-only perspective-taking and co-creation workshops, and (3) mixed-gender co-creation workshops.

The CVI Travel Grant will support preparatory activities: conducting focus groups and surveys with university students, assessing institutional capacity for implementation, and establishing partnerships with local actors such as Raising Voices and Professor Bantebya Kyomuhendo at Makerere University. Findings will inform the design of a full-scale RCT and provide practitioners with evidence-based alternatives to conventional harassment prevention campaigns.