How do Teachers React to Children Labeled as Sexually Abused?

Abstract

To better understand the possible stigmatizing effects of child sexual abuse, 60 teachers were asked to make multiple judgments about the behavior of a child described with one of four types of labels: (a) neutral; (b) dissimilar; (c) experienced a nonsexual trauma; and (d) experienced a sexual trauma (i.e., sexually abused). Teachers expected a child labeled as sexually abused to experience more stress than a child labeled as neutral or dissimilar, but not more stress than a child labeled as having experienced nonsexual trauma. No significant differences on other dependent variables (e.g., attributions for failure, expectations of future positive behavior) were found. Although these results suggest that teachers have different expectations for sexually abused children, they provide no evidence of stigmatization. To what extent these are realistic expectations or may serve as self-fulfilling prophecies is unclear.