Campus Sexual Assault Victimization and Perpetration Experiences in Racial, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation Student Subpopulations: A Scoping Review

Background and Purpose: Research on campus sexual assault (CSA) has grown considerably in recent years; however, knowledge of CSA experiences among racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority students remains limited. Understanding CSA experiences of minority populations is necessary for designing and delivering maximally efficacious interventions to prevent CSA and support CSA survivors.

The current project helps to formulate a broad overview of the state of the research into CSA experiences among racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority students on U.S. college campuses. It also summarizes findings from the identified studies in order to extrapolate general trends in racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority students’ CSA experiences, including group prevalence rates and differences.

Methods: This scoping review 1) identifies the prevalence rates of CSA victimization and perpetration reported among racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender minority groups; and 2) determines differences across studies in CSA victimization and perpetration rates among students based on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Studies were included if they: sampled U.S. college students; included data specifically on racial/ethnic, gender, and/or sexual minority individuals; and reported rates of CSA perpetration and/or victimization in at least one of these groups. A total of 17 studies published between 2011 and 2021 using samples of U.S. college students were included in the review and assessed rates within racial/ethnic (n = 4), sexual orientation (n = 4), and gender identity (n = 9) subgroups.

Results: In the 17 studies sampled, students from racial/ethnic minority groups, gender minority groups, and sexual minority groups were found to experience elevated rates of CSA victimization as compared to white, cisgender, and heterosexual groups, respectively. These minority groups also report higher rates of CSA perpetration relative to their counterparts. Notably, however, the sampled studies did not assess constructs of race/ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation in consistent ways, making pooling or comparing their results difficult. The studies also varied widely in their methodological approaches, including victimization and perpetration measures, sampling procedures, sample sizes, and levels and types of analysis.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings highlight the need for CSA prevention and survivor support programming and policies specifically designed for racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minority college students in the U.S. Research on mechanisms explaining elevated rates of victimization and perpetration among minoritized groups is needed. Future research should address the experiences of CSA within these and other minority student subgroups (such as lower-SES students), including measuring structural inequalities on college campuses that affect students from historically marginalized and underserved populations. Research in this field would also benefit from the development of standardized demographic and CSA measurement constructs and procedures.