ABSTRACT
Full Stop Australia (FSA), one of Australia’s leading feminist violence prevention and counselling organisations, successfully advocated for the development and implementation of a sexual harassment and sexual abuse prevention programme, targeting early-career PhD supervisors. Building on Moira Carmody’s (2006, 2008a, 2008b, 2015) influential approach to violence prevention, and grounded in the Australian national best practice standards for violence prevention education developed by Carmody and used by Australian sexual assault services, the Ethical Pedagogical Practices: Respectful Supervisory Relationships programme aims to promote systemic, cultural and individual change by approaching academic sexual misconduct as an ethical as well as a legal issue. Moreover, by focussing on early-career academics, the programme targets those not yet fully enculturated into the norms of the academy and can be thought of as still transitioning from their own status as higher-degree students into fully fledged members of the academic community. The chapter begins with a discussion of the theoretical framework underpinning the programme. This includes laying out the rationale for approaching academic sexual misconduct as an issue of ethics, incorporating an explanation of the framing of doctoral supervision as primarily about developing ethical research teaching practices, along with an exposition of the particular approach to ethics and ethical behaviour, adopted. We then provide an overview of key elements of the programme modules which blend academic literature with learning activities designed to enable critical reflection on ethical supervisory practices and to challenge accepted supervisory norms. The paper concludes with a reflective account by the authors of some of the overall challenges that may be encountered when undertaking prevention work in the academy.
