HomeAbstract of 10th-icreconfDo Age-of-consent Laws and Culture Affect the Perception of Teacher Sexual Misconduct?

Do Age-of-consent Laws and Culture Affect the Perception of Teacher Sexual Misconduct?

  • Nov 4, 2025
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Abstract Book of the 10th International Conference on Research in Education

Year: 2025

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Do Age-of-consent Laws and Culture Affect the Perception of Teacher Sexual Misconduct?

Alzbeta Tumova, Ella Simpson

ABSTRACT:

Teacher sexual misconduct has become a growing concern in recent years. A relationship between a teacher and a student can have a profound effect on the student and lead to PTSD, depression, trust issues and even thoughts of suicide. The perceptions of these relationships directly affect the reporting of the crime, as a student might believe the behaviour is normal. If the offenders felt the misconduct is normalized, this could spike offending rates and cause severe harm to the student population. Surprisingly, there is very little literature addressing this topic, and this study attempts to fill the gap in current research. This pilot study focuses on these perceptions and compares the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, as they differ in their legal systems, including the age-of-consent laws. This was done through two identical questionnaires translated into both languages, which were shared through social media and university resources. Quantitative analysis was used to interpret the findings. The analysis showed mixed results. 62.5% of the Czech Republic sample reported encounters of teacher sexual misconduct compared to only 36.5% reported by the United Kingdom sample. However, 28.8% of the UK sample reported witnessing a breach of age-of-consent laws, compared to only 12.5% of the Czech sample. There did not seem to be a correlation between the countries’ consent laws and punitive beliefs. Specific ages of the student victim did alter perceptions of the misconduct in both samples. The vast majority of both samples showed a negative perception of these relations. Interestingly, in contrast with previous literature, no significant gender bias was found. Since this study contained a small sample of N=116, further research is needed to confirm these findings and address this issue.

Keywords: Teacher Sexual Misconduct, Age-Of-Consent, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Social Perceptions