Describing youth as actionists for peer sexual violence prevention: correlates of opportunity to act

Author’s note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Victoria Banyard, Associate Director, Center on Violence Against Women and Children, Rutgers University. Victoria.banyard@rutgers.eduObjective: An emerging prevention strategy to reduce peer sexual violence among adolescents is bystander training (that is, actionism). The situational-cognitive model of actionism describes key variables that may promote action, the first of which is detecting the opportunity to help. The purpose of this study was to examine this first stage of action to better understand youth who report opportunity to respond to situations of sexual violence.Method: The current cross-sectional study examined a measure of youth bystander opportunity in a baseline sample of youth in school grades 7–10 in the Great Plains region of the US (N=2,225). Students indicated whether they witnessed four situations related to risk of peer sexual violence.Results: Opportunities for actionism varied based on the type of situation. Opportunities to intervene were most common for situations involving unwanted touching and sexual rumours. Older youth, girls and youth with self-reported risk factors such as alcohol use and internalising symptoms were more likely to report opportunities for actionism.Discussion: Further study of bystander opportunity and correlates of bystander opportunity could help better tailor prevention approaches to provide practice in strategies that are based on the range of opportunities which particular groups of youth may be most likely to encounter.Key messages:Adolescents have the potential to prevent peer sexual violence by being active bystanders when they are aware of risk.Youth reported more opportunities to respond to unwanted sexual contact and sexual rumours than sexual assault.Older youth, girls and youth who used alcohol were more likely to report response opportunities.