Sexual harassment in Zimbabwe teacher education : unheard voices of pre-service teachers in selected teacher training colleges

Abstract

Sexual harassment is an unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that affects individual dignity and may be physical, verbal, and non-verbal, often sexually coloured, offensive, intrusive, degrading or intimidating (Oni et al. 2019; Worke et al. 2023). The recent rise of sexual harassment cases globally in workplaces and educational institutions has become a cause for concern and is now viewed as a social ill. Given the focus of sexual harassment research, on universities, and workplaces, internationally, and locally (Vohlidalova 2018; Bondestam and Lundqvist 2020) it became imperative to investigate the phenomenon in teacher training colleges. This study explored sexual harassment in Zimbabwe teacher education through the unheard voices of pre-service teachers in selected teacher training colleges. It sought to understand student teachers’ experiences, the coping strategies that they adopt and the factors contributing to the prevalence of this of sexual harassment phenomenon in these institutions. An interpretive paradigm informed the study where multiple-site case study design and a qualitative approach investigated 12 purposively sampled lecturers and 30 students from three selected teacher training colleges. Data which were generated through face-to-face interviews and drawings were analysed manually through eight interrelated steps of open coding. The study was grounded in two theories Social Construction of Gender Theory (SCGT) and Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC) theory, which provided a lens for understanding and explaining findings. Student teachers understood sexual harassment as pressured sexual intimacy which involves sexual assault, uncomfortable contact, and use of threats, derogatory language, and misuse of authority. Sexual harassment affected victims socially, emotionally (psychologically) and academically. The study further revealed that student teachers experienced coerced sexual engagements, rape, uncomfortable touching, sexual exploitation, demeaning sexual remarks and jokes. Findings also revealed that student teachers adopted mainly three coping strategies: emotion - based coping, problem-based coping and the avoidance coping (dysfunctional or harmful coping) to deal with sexual harassment effects. The factors contributing to the prevalence of sexual harassment in the teacher training colleges that emerged from this study include poverty; lack of knowledge and absence of legislation on sexual harassment, normalisation and trivialisation of sexual harassment, cultural practices, indecent dressing and laziness among student teachers. This study suggests the re-introduction of student grants and loans withdrawn a few years ago to cushion them against poverty and hence reduce their vulnerability to sexual harassment. Relevant legislation against sexual harassment needs to be instituted and actively executed to curb sexual harassment of student teachers and the colleges are called upon to introduce sexual harassment education to make student teachers aware of how to avoid, and how to handle the phenomenon should it occur. While the study discovered that a combination of theories SCGT and TMSC provides a useful lens for unpacking, understanding and explaining sexual harassment experiences, coping strategies and factors contributing to the prevalence of the phenomenon, this was a small study of 42 participants from only three of the seventeen teacher training colleges. The thesis suggests a need for comprehensive studies drawing on this framework and involving more teacher training colleges.