Victimisation in Swedish higher education institutions: a study of harassment, threats and violence against researchers and teachers

Abstract

This report describes the occurrence of harassment, threats and violence directed at researchers and teachers in the Swedish higher education sector. The report is based on a survey initiated by the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg and conducted in collaboration with the Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers (SULF) and the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF). An interim report with the overall findings was published in July 2022. This final report is a supplement to the findings presented in the interim report.

The purpose of mapping researchers’ and teachers’ exposure to harassment, threats and violence is to provide a picture of how widespread the problem is, and to show how exposure is distributed and the consequences of both exposure and the risk or concern about exposure. The data collection was carried out in January 2022 through a survey sent to SULF members. The survey questions related to respondents’ exposure over their entire careers as well as the previous year. The report contains a background chapter that places the results and analyses in the context of knowledge about media reporting and policies in Sweden and comparable countries.

The report was written by David Brax, an investigator at the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg. Anna-Carin Fagerlindh Ståhl, Work Environment Researcher, PhD Medical Science, and Erik Berglund, researcher at the Department of Public Health and Health Care Sciences, Uppsala University, assisted with statistical processing. Lotta Kamm, at SULF, coded the questionnaire and Anna Lundgren, at SULF, conducted a non-response analysis. The report has been reviewed by Anna Gavell Frenzel, an investigator at the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), with special responsibility for the Politicians’ Safety Survey (PTU).

Summary of the main survey results: While incidents of exposure to violence, theft and vandalism in the capacity of researcher or teacher were reported, they were relatively uncommon in the data. Six per cent of respondents in the survey reported ever being exposed to any such types of incidents. Experiences of exposure to some form of threat or harassment were considerably more common. Among all respondents, 39 per cent stated that they had been exposed to some form of threat or harassment. These incidents were reported across all subject areas, with over 30 per cent of respondents in each subject area reporting experiencing victimisation in some form. However, such experiences were most common in the humanities and social sciences, within which almost 50 per cent reported experiences of being threatened or harassed. Women were found to be more exposed than men to most types of incidents and reported concerns about being exposed to a greater extent. This is particularly true for victimisation that occurs in the context of teaching and supervision. Victimisation was higher among those who were more active both on social media and in traditional media, although this was a relatively small group. Slightly higher levels of exposure was also reported by those who said they worked in subject areas that had featured in previous incident reports and which had been subject to debate and could be perceived as politically charged. The over-representation of these subjects is higher when it comes to victimisation linked to external perpetrators. Students were the most common group of perpetrators for most categories of victimisation and most reported cases were related to teaching or tutoring. Colleagues of the victim were the second largest category of perpetrators and the most common perpetrators in situations related to ongoing research or publication of research findings. Incidents associated with appearances in social and traditional media and opinion pieces were most commonly perpetrated by outside parties. The consequences of actual victimisation and perceived risk or fear of victimisation included various forms of self-censorship. Eight per cent of those victimised said they had changed their routines or behaviour due to being victimised. Almost twice as many women as men reported such consequences. One third of respondents stated that they did not know where to turn if they experienced victimisation. Two thirds stated that they did not know if there was an action plan in place at their institution or institute of higher education (HEI) on how to deal with victimisation and the risk of victimisation or stated that there was no such action plan.