Preventing Sexual Harassment in Schools: A Behavioral Targeting to Change Boys’ Attitudes and Improve Girls’ Outcomes

We propose to evaluate an innovative school-based intervention designed to reduce gender-based peer violence and shift harmful gender norms in Bangladeshi middle schools. The program, SAFE in School (Students Advocating for Empathy), is designed to leverage the power of teaching for behavioral change. Its core innovation lies in enlisting ninth-grade boys with high social influence and at least one sister or female cousin to become student advocates, and deliver an anti-harassment curriculum to younger peers. Grounded in theories of self-persuasion and cognitive dissonance, and combined with structured perspective-taking exercises, the program harnesses key features of adolescent development to promote internalization rather than compliance. Socially influential boys will lead educational sessions for younger students, using weekly thematic content. We hypothesize that through the act of teaching, these boys will internalize the content, confront inconsistencies between beliefs and behavior, and develop a stronger sense of responsibility toward their female peers, leading to sustained behavioral change. We expect significant reductions in gender-based peer violence and improvements in the socio-emotional well-being of boys and girls, with spillovers to peer network of student advocates. We will collect rich outcomes to evaluate the program, including gender-based peer violence and harassment, prosocial attitudes, dropout, and marriage plans/arrangements.