ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Contrapower Harassment in Academia: A Survey
of Faculty Experience with Student Incivility, Bullying,
and Sexual Attention
Claudia Lampman
&
Alissa Phelps
&
Samantha Bancroft
&
Melissa Beneke
Published online: 7 November 2008
#
Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract This study defines contrapower harassment in
academia as student incivility, bullying, and sexual atten-
tion aimed at faculty. A U.S., Alaskan sample of 399
professors (50% women, 88% white) at the state’s largest
public university was surveyed about their experience with
contrapower harassment. Although men reported more
sexual attention from students and comparable levels of
student incivility–bullying, women reported that such
behaviors were more upsetting and had a greater negative
impact on their health and work-lives; they were also more
likely to take action following such experiences than men.
Tenure-track faculty appear to be at increased risk of
student hostility. Discussion focuses on how gender and
other markers of socio-cultural or institutional power relate
to the experience of contrapower harassment.
Keywords Contrapower harassment
.
Incivility
.
Bullying
.
Sexual Harassment
.
Faculty
Introduction
Almost 25 years ago, Benson (1984) first used the term
contrapower harassment to denote a situation where a
person with lesser power within an institution harasses an
individual with greater power. To date, research on contra-
power harassment in university settings has focused
exclusively on student behaviors that are sexual or sexist
in nature, and finds significant gender differences in the
reporting and impact of such experiences (Carroll and Ellis
1989; DeSouza and Fansler 2003; Grauerholz 1989;
Matchen and DeSouza 2000; McKinney 1990). In this
paper, we argue that it is important to study a wider range
of student behaviors falling under the umbrella of contra-
power harassment, including disrespectful, hostile, and
even violent actions aimed at faculty. Our research explores
two power dynamics in an academic setting: (1) the
experience and impact of contrapower harassment (defined
as uncivil, bullying and sexual student behaviors aimed at
faculty) at one public university in the U.S., and (2) the
prediction that women and other faculty groups with
diminished socio-cultural or institutional power would be
more frequent targets of student harassment. We take a
social structural perspective on gender throughout this
paper (see Rudman and Glick 2008 for a review). This
perspective assumes that traditional gender role segregation
(i.e., women as caretakers and men as providers) has
resulted in marginalized social status for women and
prescribed gender role expectations consistent with stereo-
typic roles (i.e., communal, nurturing qualities for women
and agentic, assertive qualities for men). We report the
results of a survey conducted at a public, open-enrollment
institution in Alaska aimed at assessing faculty experience
with student incivility, bullying, and sexual attention. The
paper begins by discussing possible reasons for increasing
levels of student hostility and aggression, followed by a
review of existing research on contrapower sexual harass-
ment. The introduction ends with hypotheses about how
power-based and curricular characteristics might make
women and other faculty cohorts more frequent targets of
contrapower harassment, including minorities, and those
with less teaching experience, lower organizational status,
and/or provocative curricula.
Sex Roles (2009) 60:331–346
DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9560-x
C. Lampman (*)
:
A. Phelps
:
S. Bancroft
:
M. Beneke
Department of Psychology, University of Alaska Anchorage,
3211 Providence Drive,
Anchorage, AK 99508, USA
e-mail: afcbl@uaa.alaska.edu
@Phil_Robichaud
@deepthiw
@JoseServera