Improving Equity, Access, and Professionalism at Archaeological Field Schools through the Prevention and Reduction of Sexual Harassment and Assault

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research documents the prevalence of sexual harassment in higher education and archaeological learning and working environments. The harassed generally are those with little power: students, trainees, and early career professionals, particularly women, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC individuals. Harassment early in peoples’ educational and career pursuits can cause them to leave the field and leave behind potentially impactful careers, depriving the discipline of important contributions. Though not addressed in prior research in the educational landscape of archaeology, this harassment may be prevalent at field schools. In 2020, we began a three-phase research program, funded by the National Science Foundation, to investigate policies and procedures that field school directors can implement that prevent and reduce harassment, while creating a learning environment that is safer and more inclusive for students. We report our results of a survey initiated in spring 2020 that asked respondents about practices they implement to reduce and prevent harassment (n = 70). We also report the results of a document analysis of field school syllabi (n = 24) that reviewed practices implemented. From these results we propose several recommendations that may help create field schools that are safer and more inclusive for students traditionally underrepresented in archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32492