Affiliation:
1. Illinois State University, USA
Abstract
The sexual abuse of students in grades K-12 by educators/school personnel is an understudied phenomenon in society. The present chapter explores and describes the extant empirical research on students sexually victimized by educators with an emphasis on offense prevalence, victim characteristics and behaviors, offender characteristics and behaviors, contextual incident characteristics, initiatives to address the problem, and shortcomings that impede awareness and knowledge. Shortcomings include a lack of national-level data collection, perception and delegitimization, transferring alleged offenders to other school systems, and reporting practices. This chapter provides readers with contemporary information on the scope and scale of educator sexual abuse through the description of these invisible victims, their offenders, and incident characteristics of the offense.