In the 1995 survey, sexual harassment, while common, was reported as occurring less frequently overall than racial harassment. Thirty-three percent of eighth graders and 37 percent of high schoolers indicated they had been targets of offensive sexual comments at school or on the way to or from school. Girls, however, reported a much higher incidence of sexual harassment than boys twice as often for eighth-grade girls and three times as often for high school girls. In a four-year survey of 225 superintendents, researchers Charol Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan of Hofstra University found that 96 percent of the adult abusers were men teachers and that 76 percent of the victims were girl students. Some of the abusers were categorized as pedophiles, some as adults using bad judgment.
Pedophiles primarily target elementary and middle school children.
They may target particularly vulnerable children and put them through a series of tests to see whether they can be trusted to keep a secret, thus eliminating potential targets who would talk about the abuse. Pedophiles may court their victims by slowly introducing touching or pornography in ways that entrap the victims and make them feel responsible. Several surveyed superintendents discovered that complaints had previously been made against the same staff member without having been formally reported to the superintendent. In many cases, the accused harasser was considered an outstanding teacher. Often teachers rallied around the accused teacher in one case right up to the time the fourth-grade teacher confessed to abusing girls from his class for at least eight years.