Changing a culture of sexual violence in colleges and universities through active bystander training

In this chapter, the author presents the evidence showing the pervasive nature of sexual violence experienced by college and university students. She argues that a culture of sexual violence has evolved in colleges and universities around the world. This culture is perpetuated at five-stepped levels of an ecological model (Jones et al., 2020). Consequently, it is vital that the solution to prevent sexual violence disrupts the perpetuation of sexual violence at each of the five levels. One solution that has the potential to do this are bystander interventions. The chapter reviews the research about how students intervene in sexual violence incidents. This review is framed using the work of Latane and Darley (1969) and their five-stage model of becoming an active bystander. As such, the chapter then critically reviews evaluations of key active bystander training programmes. The limitations of these programmes and evaluation research are listed as recommendations to enhance the training of the student community to become active bystanders so that they disrupt a culture of sexual violence. To reinforce these recommendations, the author argues that institutions of higher education must ensure that their policies and practices are synonymous with the messages emanating from active bystander training programmes.