Research Blog #1 - Topic Idea
The Effect of a Sexual Assault on a Student's Academic, Social, and Mental Performance
In college, there are a lot of things that go unspoken about including sexual violence. There are a lot of bystanders and many incidents that go unreported throughout individuals' college career. In my research paper, I want to research the effects that sexual violence has on a student's ability to perform not only in a good academic standing, but a good mental health and social standing as well, as the student (victim) proceeds with their college career. I want to research on a case by case basis of the effects such an incident can have on a student because it can vary from person to person. Sexual violence on college campus is such a prevalent occurrence; however, I do not feel like it is spoken about enough and that no one really has the knowledge of what it can do to a student's state.
This is a good topic, but you should try to define some particular aspect of the survivor experience that interests you. Is there something that survivors have in common that can help us understand that experience? Is it important for them to claim a public voice on the topic in order to take control of their experience? What things prevent them from doing that?
ReplyDeleteBesides looking at academic articles on the survivor experience, you should also look for some well detailed stories of survivors, which will help you locate case material which will support your eventual thesis. A book that has helped my thinking on this topic and which contains at least two very well documented cases is Jon Krakauer's Missoula, in which he looked at all rape cases on a college campus during a two-year period:
https://www.amazon.com/Missoula-Rape-Justice-System-College/dp/0385538731
There are also a couple of documentary films and books that offer survivor stories, but especially The Hunting Ground, available in both forms (both worth looking at):
https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Ground-Assault-American-Campuses/dp/1510705740/
https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Ground-Kirby-Dick/dp/B014TVGEIW/
The film "It happened here" is also worth watching:
https://www.amazon.com/Happened-Here-Angie-Epifano/dp/B00XJDE3I0/
I think both show women finding a way to claim a public voice on the issue of sexual violence so that they can help others and help themselves to recover and bring their lives out of the shadow of rape. That seemed to be an interesting commonality among those discussed, and it seems a universal issue, as survivors often do not report in order to maintain their privacy, yet those who keep it to themselves may end up suffering the most.
Some blogs of previous students who have taken on this topic, which might point you to interesting sources:
http://carlybargmannblog.blogspot.com/ -- I list this first as this student wanted to pursue the topic as you define it and she had some good sources.
http://savannahdavis201blog.blogspot.com/ -- not the most complete blog, but she developed an interesting topic related to the taboo against speaking in hookup culture, as discussed in the work of Lisa Wade, whose American Hookup would be a must-read.
http://collegestacy.blogspot.com/ -- which focused on the fascinating and well documented case of the "mattress girl."
http://meravkleinmann.blogspot.com/ -- which focused on male victims of sexual assault, which are more common than you might think and, because victims are much less likely to report, much more likely to be the result of serial rapists.
http://entitlementadeadlysinforathletes.blogspot.com/ -- which focused on "athletic entitlement" as a cause of rape on college campuses with a strong sports focus.