Crossing the line: When pedagogical relationships go awry

Abstract

Background/Context: Very little empirical research has been conducted on the issue of educator sexual misconduct (ESM) in secondary settings. The few reports available typically treat a larger social issue, such as sexual harassment or child abuse; therefore, data on ESM specifically must be extrapolated. When such data are obtained, the focus has been on rates of incidence rather than the nature of the problem. Feminist scholars have theorized embodiment in education and debated whether and to whatextent an eroticized pedagogy is desirable, but scant attention has beenpaid to how and why erotic pedagogy can go awry. Research Question/Focus of Study: A central question of this study is whether and when the sexualdynamic of teaching that many scholars believe is a condition present in most classrooms becomes ESM. This article focuses on just one step of theteacher-student affair process: how the line between "teacher" and "lover" was crossed. Participants: The primary participantsare Hannah and Kim high school English teach-ers who had a sexual relationship with a student. Their cases are framed with Mary Kay Letoumeau and Heather Ingram, two headline-heavy teachers whose backgrounds and affair patterns are similar to Hannah's and Kim's. Research Design: This is a qualitative case study based primarily upon interviews and artifacts collected from the participants. Conclusions/Recommendations: The participants' relationships with their students were an escalation of events, a continuum upon which "crossing the line" was arbitrarily fixed at the point of their physical expression of what was already an emotional affair. The process was similar across the cases: During the teachers' attempts to save the student from academic failure, they fell in love with the students. Students initially flirted with the teachers, which the teachers did not discourage; the teachers then allowed (and sometimes created)increasingly intimate scenarios, thereby setting the stage whereby the line could be crossed although the students initiated the physical crossingof the line. © Teachers College Columbia University.