Why schools struggle to address sexual harm: new research calls for broader cultural change

Although professionals are often attuned to wider cultural dynamics of sexual harm, like gender norms and misogyny, the study found that their insights are lost within the safeguarding system that prioritises individualised responses, such as reporting, behaviour management and exclusions. 

This can lead to missed opportunities to intervene holistically and a system that quietly expects girls to tolerate abuse while boys are pressured into silence. 

The study found that young people were often navigating coercion, image-sharing, and harassment in an environment where professionals were uncertain how to act – especially when incidents didn’t fit into a neat legal category. For example, girls described being pressured into sex through emotional manipulation or being publicly humiliated by peers, while professionals expressed discomfort categorising such cases as assault even when consent had clearly been violated, due to institutional ambiguity or fear of escalation. 

The research, published in The Journal of Sexual Aggression, based on interviews with nine teenagers and 23 frontline professionals working in policing, education and safeguarding across southeast England, found that  while many professionals recognised how gender norms, peer dynamics and digital cultures shape sexual harm, institutional constraints and risk-averse frameworks meant these insights were often caved into narrow assessments of trauma, vulnerability or misconduct.