This exploratory study examined the leadership education potential of sexual assault prevention training via a prevention approach that expressly constructs bystander education as a leadership issue. Evaluation of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program offers a practical application of a leadership education approach through a feminist lens, a framework recently advocated by Iverson, McKenzie, and Halman (2019) to better prepare student leaders for active engagement with the central social issues of their time. After undergoing one-day MVP leadership trainings, student leaders (n = 239) evidenced positive gains in such areas as leadership readiness in gender violence prevention, confidence as bystanders, and a willingness to help others. Results also suggest that participants’ prior knowledge, leadership background, and peer group membership shaped their engagement with the program. As a feminist method, MVP worked well for both women and men and across students’ varying racial/ethnic identities, but differences by peer group reveal areas in which additional research and intervention programming may be needed.
CITATION STYLE
Eriksen, S. J. (2021). GENDER VIOLENCE PREVENTION AS LEADERSHIP EDUCATION: Feminist-Inspired Bystander Training for College Student Leaders. Journal of Leadership Education, 20(4), 86–106. https://doi.org/10.12806/v20/i4/r7
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