High School Students' Adherence to Rape Myths and the Effectiveness of High School Rape-awareness Programs Journal Article

Overview

Over the past 15 years, the emergence of date rape as a social problem has resulted in college campuses implementing rape education or awareness programs. Simultaneously, researchers have worked to uncover the rates of rape on college campuses, college students' adherence to rape myths, and to a lesser extent, the effectiveness of rape-awareness programs on college campuses. This study departs from most of this prior research by focusing on high school students. The focus is twofold. First, the high school students' adherence to rape myths is assessed. Second, the effectiveness of a rape-awareness program for high school students presented by a local female victims' organization is assessed (using an experimental design). Consistent with prior research, the study found reasonably high adherence to rape myths, and that the rape-awareness program was effective in educating students about these myths.