Differences In Formal Help-Seeking Barriers Among International and Domestic Student Survivors of Campus Sexual Harassment

Background

A substantial proportion of college students experience sexual harassment during their time at university. Despite the negative consequences of victimization, many survivors do not seek formal help. Prior research has identified multiple barriers to formal help-seeking; however, less is known about how these barriers may differ across diverse student populations. Students with minoritized identities may face heightened vulnerability and encounter additional barriers to seeking formal support. International students represent a growing part of the U.S. higher education population yet remain understudied in the literature on campus sexual violence. This study addressed two research questions: 1) How do international student survivors of sexual harassment differ from domestic students in terms of formal help-seeking decisions? 2) How do international and domestic students differ in the types of barriers related to not seeking formal help?

Methods

This study used data from the 2019 Associations of American Universities Campus Climate Survey, which was conducted at 33 schools. The analytic sample comprised 87,749 students who reported experiencing sexual harassment (domestic: n=80,900; international: n=6,849). International student status was based on reported legal resident status. Formal help-seeking was operationalized as a dichotomous variable, i.e., whether students contacted any university-affiliated formal resources (e.g., counseling services, Title IX offices). Students who did not seek formal help were asked to indicate which barriers (from a list of 11 items) stopped them from contacting formal resources. Barriers were examined at the item level and then grouped into three domains: individual (3 items), relational (4 items), and institutional barriers (4 items), consistent with prior help-seeking literature. A sensitivity check was conducted to ensure the domain division. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted, adjusting for race, gender, and student classification.

Results

Among students who experienced sexual harassment, 88% (n=77,106) did not seek any formal help. A lower proportion of international students (85.4%) than domestic students (88.1%) reported not seeking any formal help (p<.001). In adjusted models, international students had higher odds of formal help-seeking compared to domestic students (OR=1.24; 95% CI [1.13-1.37], p<.001). At the item-level, domestic students are more likely to endorse barriers such as “I did not think anyone would believe me” and “I did not think it was serious enough to contact any of these programs”. In contrast, international students were more likely to endorse “I did not want the person to get into trouble”. At the domain level, domestic students are more likely to endorse both individual (OR=0.87; 95% CI [0.81-0.93], p<0.001) and institutional barriers (OR=0.86; 95% CI [0.79-0.95], p<.01), while no statistically significant difference was observed for relational barriers.

Implications

Although international students were more likely than domestic students to seek formal support, the overall rate of non-help-seeking remained high across both groups. Differences in barrier endorsement suggest that help-seeking processes may operate differently across student populations. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced, culturally responsive approaches to supporting survivors and addressing barriers to formal help-seeking on college campuses.