SURVEYS ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: LESSONS LEARNED
The objective of this symposium is to reflect on the importance of surveys for obtaining information that reveals the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of various university communities in relation to gender-based violence. Participating researchers come from a Latin American institution based in Mexico, a Colombian university, and two Mexican universities. All share the use of an instrument developed at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco Unit, in 2017, and later in a modified and expanded version launched in 2021 from another unit of the same university.
The first paper poses the following question: surveys on gender-based violence, for what purpose? This allows us to frame the symposium by putting on the table a necessary reflection on methodology, data-collection instruments, and the course taken by data obtained through surveys following a feminist logic.
The second paper presents a qualitative and critical reading of the survey applied at FLACSO Mexico in 2020; the results of this exercise were not well received by the institution, which had negative consequences for the research line on gender and feminisms. Despite this, a protocol for institutional action was drafted and approved, and remains in force; finally, the paper problematizes the ethics of those involved in disseminating survey results and the response units involved.
The third proposal aims to analyze the role of institutional trust in characterizing gender-based violence (GBV) in universities as an indispensable condition for its prevention and response. Following application of the survey at a university in Medellín, it is concluded that conditions such as recognition of response units and mechanisms strengthen institutional trust and reduce disclosure bias, as well as the underreporting of GBV, allowing for a more accurate characterization of the problem in order to redesign prevention strategies and institutional response.
The fourth paper, proposed by a team from the University of Colima, describes how the shift from initial institutional resistance to greater openness and commitment shows that the university context is in permanent transformation, and that reflecting on such contexts is a constitutive part of constructing and interpreting data. Likewise, the tension identified between quantitative data and qualitative knowledge confirms context as an active part of interpretation, and reveals the persistence of gaps between formal and cultural transformations.
The fifth presentation focuses on reflecting on surveys centered on gender-based violence and their practical and normative impacts on higher education institutions, highlighting the continued importance of providing useful input for informed, evidence-based decision-making, as well as for designing adequate policies to prevent, address, and sanction such violence.
