Vocational students in the hospitality industry explain guests’ sexual harassment

Maria Hedlin; Eva Klope

doi:10.3384/njvet.2242-458X.2414179

Authors

Maria Hedlin Linnaeus University, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6016-4416
Eva Klope Linnaeus University, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8038-4870

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/njvet.2242-458X.2414179

Keywords:

discourses, hospitality industry, sexual harassment, vocational culture, vocational students

Abstract

This study’s purpose is to contribute knowledge which can be used as a basis for vocational teachers in hospitality when they discuss sexual harassment with their students. We therefore explore how students in training for vocations in the hospitality industry explain why some guests subject staff to sexual harassment. The empirical material consists of focus group interviews with students in the Swedish Hotel and Tourism programme and the Restaurant Management and Food programme. Twenty-two focus group interviews were conducted, 2–8 students participated in each group. The interviews took place in ten different municipalities in southern Sweden. The students’ explanations are that the sexual harassment is an issue linked to the generation, an issue of information, an issue of personality, an issue related to alcohol, an issue to do with male nature, and an issue of guests taking advantage of their status. These different explanations are linked to overarching discourses. Several of these are historical discourses that have been repeated for a long time. For teachers in the hospitality vocational education programmes a pedagogical point can be to highlight all the explanations and discourses in order to examine together with the students the assumptions on which their explanations rest.

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