Using Popular Media Portrayals to Investigate Undergraduates’ Perceptions of Sexual Consent
Nona Maria Gronert. 2022.
Gender and Education. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2022.2027887
Abstract: Sexual assault is sexual activity without consent, but what is consent? Undergraduates’ understandings are often messier than the consensual/non-consensual binary. U.S. university undergraduates watched videos depicting consensual sexual interactions and sexual assaults. Scenes were drawn from popular television programs and pornographic websites, and varied in their inclusions of verbal consent, alcohol consumption, and coercion. The results show promise for the method of using popular media vignettes to investigate undergraduates’ consent perceptions. Findings illustrate that women who never viewed pornography found the scenes less consensual than men who frequently viewed pornography. Despite U.S. law requiring universities to provide sexual consent education to incoming students, such sexuality education had only limited effects on perceptions of consent. Findings suggest that semester-long educational courses were more effective than one-time trainings in impacting perceptions of consent.
Law, Campus Policy, Social Movements, and Sexual Violence: Where do we stand in the #MeToo movement?
Nona Maria Gronert. 2019.
Sociology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12694 | Video abstract | Teaching and Learning Guide
Among the top 10% of most downloaded papers published between January 2018 and December 2019 from Sociology Compass
Abstract: In the last 8 years, activist pressure has increased attention to sexual violence at universities. Most recently, the #MeToo movement has widened the conversation about sexual violence. This increased public attention has coincided with changes in federal guidelines, state laws, and campus policies on sexual violence as well as social movement activity by survivor‐activists and emerging countermovements. I argue that sociologists—specifically researchers who study gender and/or law and society—are uniquely situated to contribute to the study of sexual violence on campus. I synthesize a growing sociological and interdisciplinary literature on sexual violence—legal changes, policy effects, and social movement struggles—in order to advocate that sociologists study laws, campus policies, and social movements simultaneously.
Contesting the terms of consent: How university students (dis)align with institutional policy on sexual consent
Nona Maria Gronert & Joshua Raclaw. 2019.
Gender and Language 13(3):291-313. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34939
Abstract: Universities’ sexual consent policies remain the focus of national media and government attention in the United States. Affirmative consent (i.e. physical and verbal consent) is increasingly the norm for institutional definitions of consent; yet these policies remain at odds with how students report consenting to sexual activity. In this paper, we examine how students formulate their understanding of sexual consent in ways that either resist or align with their university’s policies on sexual assault. Using conversation analysis, we analyse interviews in which students make explicit references to university policy when defining personal definitions of consent. We show that interviewees who do not align with university policy orient to this position as problematic and accountable, and conduct significantly more interactional work when defining consent. These findings illustrate the complex challenges that university students may face in articulating personal understandings of sexual consent, which may have consequences for policy and sexual consent programs.
Nona Maria Gronert. 2022.
Gender and Education. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2022.2027887
Abstract: Sexual assault is sexual activity without consent, but what is consent? Undergraduates’ understandings are often messier than the consensual/non-consensual binary. U.S. university undergraduates watched videos depicting consensual sexual interactions and sexual assaults. Scenes were drawn from popular television programs and pornographic websites, and varied in their inclusions of verbal consent, alcohol consumption, and coercion. The results show promise for the method of using popular media vignettes to investigate undergraduates’ consent perceptions. Findings illustrate that women who never viewed pornography found the scenes less consensual than men who frequently viewed pornography. Despite U.S. law requiring universities to provide sexual consent education to incoming students, such sexuality education had only limited effects on perceptions of consent. Findings suggest that semester-long educational courses were more effective than one-time trainings in impacting perceptions of consent.
Law, Campus Policy, Social Movements, and Sexual Violence: Where do we stand in the #MeToo movement?
Nona Maria Gronert. 2019.
Sociology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12694 | Video abstract | Teaching and Learning Guide
Among the top 10% of most downloaded papers published between January 2018 and December 2019 from Sociology Compass
Abstract: In the last 8 years, activist pressure has increased attention to sexual violence at universities. Most recently, the #MeToo movement has widened the conversation about sexual violence. This increased public attention has coincided with changes in federal guidelines, state laws, and campus policies on sexual violence as well as social movement activity by survivor‐activists and emerging countermovements. I argue that sociologists—specifically researchers who study gender and/or law and society—are uniquely situated to contribute to the study of sexual violence on campus. I synthesize a growing sociological and interdisciplinary literature on sexual violence—legal changes, policy effects, and social movement struggles—in order to advocate that sociologists study laws, campus policies, and social movements simultaneously.
Contesting the terms of consent: How university students (dis)align with institutional policy on sexual consent
Nona Maria Gronert & Joshua Raclaw. 2019.
Gender and Language 13(3):291-313. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34939
Abstract: Universities’ sexual consent policies remain the focus of national media and government attention in the United States. Affirmative consent (i.e. physical and verbal consent) is increasingly the norm for institutional definitions of consent; yet these policies remain at odds with how students report consenting to sexual activity. In this paper, we examine how students formulate their understanding of sexual consent in ways that either resist or align with their university’s policies on sexual assault. Using conversation analysis, we analyse interviews in which students make explicit references to university policy when defining personal definitions of consent. We show that interviewees who do not align with university policy orient to this position as problematic and accountable, and conduct significantly more interactional work when defining consent. These findings illustrate the complex challenges that university students may face in articulating personal understandings of sexual consent, which may have consequences for policy and sexual consent programs.
