Beyond Trigger Warnings: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Teaching on Sexual Violence and Avoiding Institutional Betrayal

Abstract

As sociology instructors increasingly include materials on sexual violence in their courses, both instructors and students express anxieties over how best to handle such sensitive conversations. This article critically examines the conventional advice to offer a trigger warning, which can interfere with student education (e.g., requiring survivors to miss out on a lesson) and does not adequately prepare instructors for the difficulties that may arise during discussions of sexual violence (e.g., managing victim-blaming comments). Using institutional betrayal as an alternative frame, this article builds a trauma-informed and survivor-centered pedagogy that offers specific examples and strategies of how to teach to survivors instead of around them.