It started with an episode of Skam.
The second season of NRK's popular TV series followed the character Noora Amalie Sætre. In the ninth episode, she wakes up after a party and suspects that she has been raped by her boyfriend's brother.
Beate Goldschmidt-Gjerløw was a teacher in a secondary school when the series was broadcast in 2016.
“When I saw that episode, I thought I would have to talk about this in class. Young people often experience being abused by other young people, and I wanted to address topics such as the setting of boundaries and rights,” Goldschmidt-Gjerløw says.
When she brought up the Skam episode in class, she learned that the pupils had talked very little about such issues in the past. It wasn't brought up by their teachers, and they didn't talk much about it with their parents either.
Fellow teachers Goldschmidt-Gjerløw spoke to were not sure whether this topic belonged in a classroom at all. And if they were to teach it - where would they start?
Bottom of the list of topics
Fast forward to spring 2023, and Beate Goldschmidt-Gjerløw has recently completed a doctorate at the University of Agder (UiA). In her work, she interviewed 64 social science teachers, among other things.
She asked the teachers about the extent to which they taught topics such as rape among young people, sexual abuse of children, and MeToo.
“Offences against children and young people came at the very bottom of the list of topics the teachers talked about in class,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw.
The reasons are complex. The teachers felt that they did not have enough expertise in the area. They imagined that they might retraumatise or stigmatise young people who may have experienced abuse, and they were worried that someone might cry or run out of the classroom.
“The teachers were worried about getting too close to their pupils. Such worries mean that neither teachers nor pupils raise the topics of violations or abuse,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw.
She believes that most of the explanation lies in deficiencies in teacher training and the curriculum, but also in the cultural taboo against talking about such issues.
“The teachers care a lot about their pupils, but not talking about violations and abuse is a mistaken way of showing care. Issues such as skewed power relations, and that victims are never to blame for what has happened, are important to include in teaching.”
Historical taboo for women
The researcher found a clear relationship between the gender and age of the teachers and how willing they were to talk about harassment and abuse in class.
“Young female teachers, in particular, bring up the issues, that was me some years ago,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw with a smile.
The younger teachers teach more about this than the older ones. And older female teachers teach the least about it.
“Historically, it has been very difficult for women to talk about such experiences. It is possible that this cultural taboo could be the reason,” says the researcher.
In real life, nobody intervenes
Inspired by her findings, Goldschmidt-Gjerløw has created a teaching pack on harassment and abuse. Here she collaborated with two of the teachers she interviewed and their pupils.
She gave the pupils a list of ten topics they could choose to work on. They chose harassment and abuse among young people.
“It is a paradox in a way, and maybe also an explanation: That when teachers teach so little about this, the pupils want to learn more about it,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw.
Together they developed a role-playing game. The pupils wrote scripts about events at places such as training centres, parties or the bus. Then they acted out the roles of the harassed, the harasser, the bystanders and the one who intervened.
“We wanted to make the pupils aware that they can influence a situation when they see someone being harassed. But they felt that it made the role play fake, because in real life, their experience is that no one intervenes,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw.
The young people expressed that they were powerless to stand up against harassment in their daily lives. Nor did they know that they have rights to protect them from it, or that the teacher has a responsibility for preventing it.
“They had taken on all the responsibility and felt that they had to handle it on their own. There is great potential for improvement if young people become aware that they have the right to be protected from such incidents,” the researcher says.
"The boys, in particular, said that they wouldn’t tell if they were subjected to something, while the girls were less sure. This has to do with traditional gender roles,” says Goldschmidt-Gjerløw.