Citation

Ahmed MD, van Niekerk RL, Ho WKY, Morris T, Baker T, Khan BA, Tetso A. Int. J. Comp. Appl. Crim. Justice 2018; 42(1): 33-53.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Society of Criminology's Division of International Criminology, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis)

DOI

10.1080/01924036.2017.1310661

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The current study assessed the perceptions of acceptable sexual behaviour of coaches and the occurrence of sexual harassment among female student in India. A sample of 180 Indian female student-athletes at intercollegiate and inter-university levels with male coaches participated in this study. A questionnaire on sport-specific Touch and Behaviour versus Unwanted Intimacy from coaches (Vanden Auweele et al., 2008), consisting of 41 items on a 5-point rating scale was used. The participants were asked to indicate the acceptability of specific coaching behaviour as well as the occurrence of the behaviour represented in each item. The acceptability of the behaviour was determined by means and standard deviations, while the occurrence was determined by frequencies. Factor analysis was performed to determine the structure of the coaches' behaviour and athletes' acceptability thereof, which yielded four factors. Cronbach's alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the extracted items on each factor. Two factors, namely, unwanted sexual behaviour and inappropriate verbal and physical sexual behaviour, were regarded by athletes as very serious and unacceptable coach behaviour, while a third factor represented context-dependent suspicious behaviour (a grey area in which athletes differ in their opinion) and was perceived to be serious and unacceptable. A fourth factor represented acceptable behaviour. The occurrence of very serious and unacceptable behaviour was reported by 31% of the female athletes.

Language: en

Keywords

Harassment; perception of sexual abuse; Principal Component Analysis; unacceptable behaviour in sport; varimax rotation