A study of safeguarding policies relating to student-on-student sexual abuse in schools in light of the accounts of those who experienced it

Sexual abuse and harassment between students in schools and colleges has risen to prominence in the UK spurred, in part, by the increasing public awareness generated by first-hand narrations, including those on Everyone's Invited (everyonesinvited.uk) (Ferguson, 2021; Everyone's Invited, 2020). Discussions around safeguarding of children often downplay their voices and experiences and can often perpetuated problematic narratives (e.g. Firmin, 2020 and Crofts et al., 2015). Everyone's Invited (2020) aims to 'spark... a conversation about rape culture' and I believe it vital for this conversation to inform wider discourse, including policy responses. It is also vital that the voices of the victims/survivors are heard and,
herefore, my research will draw on narratives from Everyone's Invited as a pre-existing, primary data source to explore the victims/survivors'
understanding of their abuse and how this relates to and informs policy responses. I believe that this can rebalance the neglect of victims/survivors in this area and allow for an approach to child protection that reflects children's rights and agency alongside their developing maturity and its consequences. The first part of my research will analyse around 200 accounts from Everyone's Invited, allowing them to speak for themselves. It will also establish key common themes. The second part of my research will be to survey and interview school safeguarding leads and analyse
schools safeguarding material. I will seek to establish how first person narratives relate to the themes of, and have informed, school responses. Finally, this will be set in the context of the wider academic, policy and media disclosure around children, abuse and safeguarding and how this has
changed, including the responses to first person narratives. The ultimate aim is to inform new ways of addressing these issues. The emphasis of much of the study will be on narrative analysis. Therefore, I will adapt techniques, such as 'small stories', which are suitable for studying social
media. I will place the work within the overarching academic framework of 'contextual safeguarding' and seek to be informed by Bourdieu's theories of different capital along with epistemologies aimed at understanding gender power dynamics in everyday social interactions.