Funding: Ministry of Justice and Public Security
Project period: 2020–2024
Researchers: Kari Stefansen (project manager), Lars Roar Frøyland, Gerd Marie Solstad
Research questions
The aim of this project is to explore how sexual violence happens, is interpreted and dealt with across different relations and institutional contexts. The project departs from a normative understanding of sexual violence, i.e. as what Dahl (1994) defines as violations of a person’s gender freedom; the right to be left alone, to reject sexual advances and to decide how far sexual interactions should go.
Defined like this, sexual violence includes acts often seen as minor transgressions, such as unwanted touching, as well as acts that are perceived as severe, such as rape. Close relationships are also defined broadly in this project and include relationships with partners, friends and acquaintances, and professional relationships that encompass emotional or physical intimacy or both – such as the relation between a coach and an athlete.
These themes are especially explored:
- Prevalence and time trends in sexual violence among different groups of youths, included how researchers can measure the phenomenon.
- Cultural understandings of what acts and situations that constitute sexual violence in different contexts and relationships.
- The social drivers that facilitate sexual violence in different context, with special emphasis on social drinking and partying among youths.
- How victims describe, understand and react after sexual violence, in particular what they perceive as the right course of action in the aftermath of an assault and what types of help they could use.
Data and methods
The project utilises both quantitative and qualitative data. Data from the UngVold [YouthViolence] and Ung i Oslo [Young in Oslo] surveys are used to study prevalence and time trends in sexual violence. These are large-scale school-based studies with a high response rate.
These are the qualitative data we utilise: Interviews with women on their experiences with sexual violence as youths or young adults, interviews with women who have experienced partner sexual violence (see project 3), focus group interviews with sport students on how they understand and respond to situations that may represent sexual harassment and abuse (in collaboration with The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences), and interviews with users of help services for victims of sexual violence (from previous projects).