Meaning structures within campus policy regarding sexual violence : considering the framing of mental health care resources

Abstract

This study examines how the sexual violence policies of universities and colleges are imbued with meaning regarding post-sexual violence mental health care. The use of Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 2004; 1979) provided a tool by which the multiple types of meanings regarding post-sexual violence mental health care imbued within policies could be discerned and evaluated. In this study, a content analysis was conducted upon 81 universities currently undergoing Title IX investigations in order to identify which types of meaning structures were shared between texts, and which types of meaning structures were in competition. Results suggest that there were shared textual and interpersonal meaning structures, as well as competing textual and interpersonal meaning structures. The identified shared meaning structures point to a tendency for universities to narrowly focus on the value of a legal resolution to sexual violence, while the discovered competing meaning structures raise questions about the need for universities to consider sexual violence as a social concern.