A Case Study of K-12 School Employee Sexual Misconduct: Lessons Learned from Title IX Policy Implementation, United States, 1984-2014 (ICPSR 36870)

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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

This study was designed to examine how districts that experienced an incident of school employee sexual misconduct defined, interpreted, and implemented key elements of Title IX guidance before, during, and after the incident. The study investigated district strengths and challenges in dealing with incidents, analyzed what policies these districts have in place, and examined what steps they are taking to prevent and respond to future cases of school employee sexual misconduct.

Study Design View help for Study Design

This qualitative case study, which was conducted between January 2016 and September 2017, collected data through three methods: (1) document analysis, (2) interviews with primary actors (school employees and county officials directly involved with responding to the incident identified in the database), and (3) focus groups with secondary actors (school employees who were not directly involved with the incident but might have been indirectly affected by it).

Document analysis included written policies and protocols, training materials for staff and students, staff and student handbooks, case documents, and other guiding documents as applicable. Researchers applied a document review checklist to each document; that list included items on policy type, scope, purpose, definition, enforcement, and procedures.

Confidential, semi-structured, Institutional Review Board-approved interviews and focus groups asked participants to discuss their knowledge of district policies and procedures, describe the dissemination of these policies and procedures and of any changes to them and provide recommendations for improvement.

Sample View help for Sample

There were 459 cases of school employee sexual misconduct that attracted media coverage in 2014. These cases were originally identified using Google alerts and media reports about them were archived by Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct and Exploitation (S.E.S.A.M.E.), a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing school employee sexual misconduct. After reviewing the database, researchers conducted additional searches of online documents, and published reports; Education demographic and geographic estimates were obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) from the 2013-2014 school year for all 459 cases; to confirm content validity of the S.E.S.A.M.E. information and to retrieve additional information related to the offenses, information included 1) the schools or districts where offenders were employed, 2) details of the incidents, 3) characteristics of the offenders, and 4) characteristics of the victims. 96 cases were removed as the offender did not commit a crime against a student, leaving a final sample of 361 cases.

The study sample consists of five school districts purposefully selected from the pooled sample, located in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. The districts are situated in various locales; two are in the suburbs, one is urban, and two are rural.

Time Method View help for Time Method

Universe View help for Universe

Five K-12 school districts in Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States; primary actors (school employees and county officials directly involved in responding to an incident of school employee sexual misconduct); secondary actors (school employees who were not directly involved with an incident of school employee sexual misconduct but who might have been indirectly affected by it); victim and offender characteristics from court documents.

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Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

The Offender-victim-and-district-characteristics.sav dataset (n=361) contains 103 variables related to the characteristics of cases used to identify school districts for the interview process. Demographic characteristics (gender, age range, etc.) of both perpetrator(s) and victim(s), professional information, type of communication used between victim and perpetrator, charges, conviction status, and sentencing information are included in this dataset.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

All 361 superintendents of the five school districts of the study sample were invited to participate in the study. Of the approximately 180 superintendents who responded, five agreed to participate. Across the five districts, 41 interviews were conducted with primary actors (school employees and county officials directly involved in responding to the incident) and 10 focus groups were conducted with 51 secondary actors (school employees who were not directly involved with the incident but who might have been indirectly affected by it).

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Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2018-09-14

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