Concerns about sexism, sexual harassment and violence in universities have mushroomed over the last five years in numerous countries in Europe and beyond (for example, the UK, USA, Australia). These concerns have been rendered visible through the broader #MeToo movement, as well as through a focus in some countries on sexual harassment and violence against university students specifically. Despite these increasingly-voiced concerns, there is only a small body of research exploring sexual harassment and violence in university contexts. However, what little research there is suggests that sexual harassment and violence is prevalent in higher education. For example, the recent USVreact Project, which developed training for responding to sexual violence at European universities, noted that: ‘47% of Italian participants, 54.2% of Spanish participants and 68.6% of UK participants had experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment during their time at university. 41.8% of Italian, 52.9% of Spanish, and 58.2% of UK participants had experienced at least one incident of stalking during their studies. 30.2% of Italian, 36.7% of Spanish, and 33.6% of UK participants had experienced at least one unwanted sexual act during their time at university (Feltes et al., 2012).’ (USVreact, 2018 p. 6). Beyond Europe, a survey of all 39 universities in Australia suggested that 51% of all university students were sexually harassed on at least one occasion in 2016 (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2017, 6).

In the UK, sexism, sexual harassment and violence have frequently been narrated as aspects of ‘lad culture’ (Jackson and Sundaram, 2018). Although there has been considerable media interest in lad culture in UK higher education contexts, research in this sphere is still in its infancy. The nascent research suggests that lad culture is broadly characterised as ‘a group or “pack” mentality residing in activities such as sport and heavy alcohol consumption, and “banter” which was often sexist, misogynist and homophobic’ (Phipps and Young, 2013 page X). The little research conducted has explored students’ perspectives. This paper draws on our research which is unique in that it focuses on staff perspectives about lad culture. There are several reason why it is crucial to research staff perspectives, including that we need to know how staff perceive and understand lad culture if they are to be tasked with challenging it, and staff perspectives on lad culture, sexual harassment and sexual violence can be considered to be constitutive and reflective of university cultures.

Our research project as a whole addressed the following questions: in what ways are lad cultures manifest in different higher education contexts? Are these manifestations problematic and, if so, how? Are universities working to tackle lad cultures and, if so, how? Does more need to be done to tackle lad cultures in H.E and, if so, what?

In this paper we focus on how staff explained laddism.

We interviewed staff from across six universities in England. The six institutions were purposively selected on the basis of institution-level characteristics which tend to influence campus culture and student demographics: pre/post 1992-status; campus/non-campus; geography (north and south); and student intake (in terms of gender, ethnic and socio-economic mix). There were six institutions in our sample. Three were post-1992 universities (ex-polytechnics) and were located in different regions of England: north-west, north-east and south-east. The other three were pre-1992 universities, members of the Russell or 1994 Groups, and also located in the north-west, north-east and south-east of England. Classifying universities as campus or non-campus is not straightforward. If we define as campus universities those that have university-owned buildings and spaces situated in one place, then three of our institutions would most-likely be classed as campus Universities (two of the Pre-1992 group and one post-1992). At each institution we conducted around 10 interviews; most of these were individual ones (62 in total) plus 3 focus group discussions (each with 3 or 4 people). In total, 72 staff took part in the individual or focus group interviews, of whom 51 identified as women and 21 as men. A range of staff were involved, including: senior managers such as Pro-Vice Chancellors, College Provosts and Deans of School; Student Union officers; lecturers; welfare tutors; college officers; bar managers and security staff. Most interviews were carried out face-to-face although some were conducted by telephone. All were undertaken by the two authors (separately), using the same semi-structured interview schedule. The themes covered included: understandings of the term lad culture; individuals and groups associated with lad culture; higher education contexts in which lad culture occurs; causes of lad culture; and institutional frameworks or policies for tackling it. Most interviews lasted for approximately one hour; they were audio-recorded and transcribed in full. The interview data were coded thematically using NVivo11. Development of the codes was undertaken by the authors/interviewers and informed by previous research, the research questions and themes emerging from the data. There were 11 main codes, for example, contexts of lad culture, addressing lad culture. Seven of the 11 had sub-codes, some of which were further subdivided.

Staff narrated explanations for men’s laddism in a variety of ways. In these narratives we witness a conceptual fog that relates to the term ‘lad culture’: in general, interviewees tended not to discuss explicitly explanations for sexual violence, for example. Most explanations lacked any gendered analysis and instead referred to age/maturity, peer group influences and/or the freedom afforded by a university context. Those who mentioned gender tended to essentialise laddism as ‘boys being boys’. We explore these narratives before moving to explore gendered analyses which were infrequent and proposed by staff who had professional or personal interests in gender, equality and diversity.

Australian Human Rights Commission. 2017. Change the course: National report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities. Available at: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/change-course-national-report-sexual-assault-and-sexual (last accessed 20/11/2017). Jackson, C. and V. Sundaram (2018). "‘I have a sense that it's probably quite bad… but because I don't see it, I don't know’: staff perspectives on ‘lad culture’in higher education." Gender and Education: 1-16. Phipps, A. and I. Young (2013). That's what she said: Women students' experiences of'lad culture'in higher education. London, NUS.