A cross-sectional, convenience sample of male and female college students in India (primarily Delhi and Hyderabad), were recruited for a quantitative survey via university administrators and snowball sampling with students (primarily in Hyderabad and Delhi). Though there were no age limits placed on participation, participants ranged from 16 to 24 years of age, which reflects the common demographics of Indian college students. The researchers utilized a snowball sampling strategy, encouraging students to share the survey with their friends and classmates to reach a larger sample size. The survey and study design were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the George Washington University Office of Human Research (IRB#180620).

Data was collected using a 24-item, anonymous online questionnaire, taking less than 12 minutes to complete in entirety. The survey instrument was developed in English and was either self-administered by participants or administered in class by university officials (such as professors) who provided some direct translation from English to the local language. No identifying information was collected from college students on the survey.

There were five sociodemographic questions included, asking age, gender, living location, college, and marital status. The remainder of the survey collected data on gender equitable attitudes, perception of gender norms and violence, knowledge and discussion of gender-based violence, bystander intervention behaviours, and social media usage.

To determine gender equitable attitudes and perceptions among college students in India, the survey adapted six gender equitable statements developed by Vyas et al. for the evaluation of the Girl Rising gender-sensitization program in India (2019)101317. Participants were asked if they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed with the six gender equitable attitude statements. The statements were: (1) The traditional view that a man is the head of the family and responsible for providing economically for the family is still correct; (2) A wife should always obey her husband; (3) Men cannot take care of children as well as women can; (4) A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together; (5) Teasing is harmless fun; and (6) Girls should be allowed to decide when they want to marry. Responses to the gender equitable attitude statements were collapsed into agree (1 = positive gender attitude) and disagree (0 = negative gender attitude) categories. Negatively worded statements were reverse coded. Based on the summation of the statements, a gender equitable attitude score was calculated ranging from 0 (completely negative gender attitude response) to 6 (completely positive gender equitable response).

Participants were asked if they knew anyone at their college who has faced gender-based violence. This question was asked as a proxy measure to measure the prevalence of gender-based violence on college campuses taken from the Global Early Adolescent Study 4. Finally, participants were asked if they very often, sometimes, rarely, or never discussed the topic of gender-based violence with their friends.

This study adapted three intention to intervene questions from the Coaching Boys into Men (CBIM) study conducted in Sacramento County, CA on physical, sexual, and cyber gender-based violence 12. For each of the three instances of gender-based violence witnessed among peers or friends, survey participants were asked to report how they responded to said behavior the last time they saw it happen. Participants were given a list of two positive ( I reported it to the police or other authorities ; and I felt really bad and I stopped the act in the moment ), three negative ( I joined them ; This is normal, it happens all the time, I did not do anything ; and I did not feel good about it, but I did not do anything ), and one neutral response ( I have never-seen this happen ) to choose from. Responses were categorized by positive, negative, or never-seen responses per situation.

All data cleaning and quantitative analysis was conducted with IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25. Descriptive analysis was conducted to understand the characteristics of the study sample, check for normality and confirm test assumptions, note missing data, and evaluate variable variance. Bivariate and multivariable statistical analysis was conducted using chi-square, t-tests, and ANOVA to assess differences in indicators by age, living situation, marital status, gender, and city. Spearman s correlation analysis was run at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) to determine associations between age and continuous outcomes, such as frequency of gender-based violence discussion. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine those who had taken a positive vs. a negative bystander intervention, controlling for those who reporting having never seen gender-based violence previously.

(Table 1), below, represents the sociodemographic characteristics of the 603 study participants, all of whom were college students in India. Though 603 participants took the survey, only 505 completed the survey in its entirety. The proportion of male to female participants was 30.7% to 69.3%, respectively; given the stronger representation of females in the data sample, all analysis was disaggregated by gender. The majority of participants attended college in Delhi (26.9%) or Hyderabad (47.3%). Approximately 25.8% of participants came from other cities in India where representation in the sample was less than 5%, such as Bhubaneswar (4.48%), Cuttack (3.98%), and Mumbai (1.99%). Mean age of participants was 19.02 (SD = 2.141), with females being approximately a year younger on average than males (18.75, SD 2.025 compared to 19.63, SD = 2.271, respectively). Nearly all (98.3%) of participants reporting their marital status as single. Regarding current living context, most of the participants (63.5%) were still living at home with their family, despite attending college.

This cross-sectional study draws attention to the prevailing gender attitudes and stereotypes on college campuses in India, while also highlighting the strong potential for bystander intervention training to combat gender-based violence. The foundation for gendered attitudes, violence, and bystander response to witnessed violence is built through the years of youth and adolescence, structured by family, societal norms, attitudes 26101517.

Researchers have found that construction of gender attitudes and perceptions continue through the age where Indian students normally enter college 10.

Without intervention, these inequitable behaviors and attitudes will persist into adulthood. However, with focused preventative efforts, such as gender sensitization programs, college can instead be a period of significant positive change for these adolescents. Indeed, the unique risks faced by girls entering higher education in India is paralleled by the unique opportunities for change in gender norms and perspectives through gender sensitization and bystander intervention programming.

A critical finding of the study is that over 25% of participants in each given scenario of gender-based violence reported positive bystander intervention - either by reporting the violence to the police or stopping it in the moment. Interestingly, females were more likely than males in instances of eve teasing or physical abuse to have had a negative bystander response. This finding is in line with previous studies which discovered mothers as the primary actors in socializing adolescents in gendered behaviours, roles, and attitudes 215. Since there was only one example of bystander intervention training in India found related to male athletes 11, more research is warranted on the effectiveness of bystander intervention training targeted at both male and female college students in India, as a preventative method for gender-based violence.

However, the number of participants who report having never-seen the surveyed scenarios of violence are concerning. Given the reported prevalence of these types of violence in India, it is unclear from the study findings if participants having never-seen the given scenarios of gender-based violence have truly never witnessed or simply do not know how to recognize these types of violence in their community. This is one interpretation of the multinomial regression models, where there was much more statistical significance amongst those participants in all three scenarios of gender-based violence that had never seen that type of violence compared to those participants who had a negative bystander response for all three types of violence. Since women are more often the targets of gender-based violence, it is unsurprising that more female than male college students both know someone who has faced violence on their college campus (25.4% vs 23.2%) and report having witnessed two of the three scenarios of gender-based violence (72.2% vs. 50.9%, p<0.05 for eve teasing and 55.2% vs. 60.1%, p<0.01 for physical abuse). If these students are not recognizing violence and their community due to lack of knowledge and awareness as to what constitutes gender-based violence, then it points to a strong need for gender sensitization and prevention of bystander intervention training in those communities. In the multinomial logistic regression analysis, the results also demonstrated that male students were more likely than female students to have not witnessed the surveyed scenarios of gender-based violence compared to having a negative bystander response. Outside of the potential aforementioned explanation that men simply do not know how to recognize gender-based violence when they see it, these results also support the context that women are much more often the victim of these types of violence. More research should be done to provide more evidence for, as well as a baseline understanding of, gender-based violence experiences and risks on college campuses in India.

The study results also mirrored previous findings about male adolescents prior to college and their gender inequitable attitudes. Male college students reported lower gender equitable scores than females in this study, as well as lower frequency of discussion gender-based violence with their friends. In tandem with other research on adolescents in India 26101513 these findings strengthen the argument that males must be included in the conversations of gender-based violence prevention. Sensitizing these adolescent boys on how they can be a positive change-maker in situations of violence may well change the narrative of gender-based violence and gender attitudes on college campuses.

Finally, the statistically significant differences in gender attitudes and bystander intervention responses demarcate that more work must be done to understand the unique contexts of each Indian city. Across the study results, Delhi, Hyderabad, and the Other city categories had statistically significant differences in gender attitudes and bystander intention to intervene. Delhi, for example, had a higher percentage of negative bystander intervention intentions than did Hyderabad and Other for the first two scenarios (eve teasing and cyberbullying). It may then be unsurprising, based on data from previous studies which demonstrate gender-based violence is strongly correlated with inequitable attitudes 6 that Delhi also had the highest prevalence of exposure to gender-based violence. It is unclear from the data what these differences are due to, but points to the need for interventions focused on gender-based violence prevention to be contextualized to the city environment so as to be effective, instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach.

Harmful gender norms and inequities passed on from parents are often perpetuated in the college and higher education environment. Few interventions have focused on college students as a primary target audience to break the cycle of gender inequity, and even fewer studies have focused on bystander intervention as a preventative approach to gender-based violence. Given the findings of the study, programming targeting college students during this time of malleability, in partnership with institutions of higher education, may be a promising approach to change the narrative of gender attitudes and gender-based violence. Furthermore, because bystander strategies engage others in the prevention of gender-based violence, through increasing awareness of gender-based violence and the behaviors to safety intervene, training should be provided to students on these interventions to better understand gender-based violence and safely intervene. This approach is novel to India - and yet has proved promising in the United States and can be easily adapted to the Indian context. As more women than ever break away from the cycle from father to husband, college provides a unique environment for which adolescents can challenge the gender norms passed on from their families - changing the narrative of gender equity for generations to come.