Page 29 - Journal 89-3 Full

Swedish Research on Sexual Harassment

and Bullying in Academia:

A Perspective

By Charlotte Lindgren

This article is part of a series by members of the Bulletin’s Editorial Board to share insight
into a topic of educational interest. Here, Board member Lindgren discusses the findings of
a major research initiative in Sweden regarding sexual harassment and bullying as reported
and discussed in an article in the weekly international journal Nature. Although that journal is
focused on research in science and technology, the findings of the study have implications for
academic workplaces in many fields and geographic areas.

Supporting Information: The report discussed in this article was published in Swedish. Direct
citations from the report are translations by the author.

n Sweden, a major research and collaboration program on gender-based
Ivulnerability and sexual harassment in academia has been launched. The aim is
not only to improve the working and study environment but also to have high quality
research and teaching on the subject. Questions raised are whether such vulnerability
occurs and, if so, what may be the underlying causes and consequences.
Much is underway in this program, but what I want to highlight here is a large
survey study, the results of which received important coverage, e.g., with an article
in the scientific journal Nature (Else, 2022). The study (Rudolfsson et al., 2022)
was conducted in 2021 at 38 universities in Sweden and had 38,918 respondents.
Separate surveys were tailored to students as a group and to PhD students and staff
as a group, respectively. The surveys, which included approximately 100 questions
in total, asked not only about the respondent’s own possible exposure to sexual
harassment but also whether the respondent had ever witnessed the exposure of
others and whether the respondent had exposed others. The authors of the report
indicated that the surveys were “largely based on previously validated scales”
(Rudolfsson et al., 2022, p. 12) and thus had high statistical quality. In addition, the
study was ethically reviewed by the Karolinska
Institute in Stockholm, which was the principal
investigator of the study.
In Sweden, there are nearly 50 universities The surveys...asked not only
and colleges, and 38 are part of a cooperative
organization called SUHF—Swedish about a respondent’s own...
Association of Universities and University exposure to sexual harrassment
Colleges. According to the report of the study
(Rudolfsson et al., 2022), the organization but also...whether the respondent
includes a total of 77,928 employees and 452,621
students. Swedish universities and university had exposed others.
colleges are very different: some are considered
large for Sweden (many employees, many
students) and others are smaller in size, which

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