School related gender based violence (SRGBV) in England: An Intersectional Analysis

Abstract

This paper draws on qualitative analysis of interviews with 24 teachers and 4 focus group discussions with year 9 to 11 students in secondary schools in England. Data was collected across 3 schools for the project: ‘‘Developing Gender Equality Charter Marks in order to overcome gender stereotyping in education across Europe’. The analysis presented here focuses on intersections of gender with constructs of ethnicity, culture and religion, sexuality norms and enactments of SRGBV.

The intersectionality of gender with sexual norms emerged in essentialist views about female academic and professional competence and normative expectations of sexual conduct, sustaining a culture of gender disrespect and a gender regime in which GBV was the penalty of transgressions of gender and sexual norms and the means to reiterate male privilege in two schools.

The intersectionality of gender with culture, ethnicity and religion emerged in one of the three schools in teachers’ discourses of ethnic deficit associated with perceived lack of ability, freedom, and choice in ethnic minority girls’ and women’s lives and inappropriate expressions of sexuality that diverted from white British norms.

Further research is required to enhance knowledge about whole school cultures and gender regimes in which gender injustices are performed alongside other axes of power and discrimination.