“Steubenville, Ohio: A Community's Reckoning of Responsibility”: Discussion Guide

This discussion guide accompanies the teaching case, “Steubenville, Ohio: A Community’s Reckoning of Responsibility.” The case explores the role of social media in bringing a sexual assault incident to national attention and to trial. Two popular high school athletes sexually assaulted a teenage girl at a party. Despite evidence of their guilt based on their own boasts and eye witness accounts, many in the community refused to hold the boys accountable for their actions because of their status as star athletes on the local football team. The case was publicly exposed through social media and by hackers. This discussion guide includes suggested discussion questions and recommended readings.

“Steubenville, Ohio: A Community’s Reckoning of Responsibility” is a part of a teaching pack that explores how factors within a society influence women’s health, in particular gender-based violence, at both the societal and individual levels, and examines the critical role of leadership in effecting positive change. By reading three short cases, each of which illustrates an example of gender-based violence in a specific cultural context, students can analyze the circumstances that placed each protagonist in vulnerable positions; examine the commonalities and differences of these situations in an effort to understand the circumstances that affect women’s well-being; and explore the connections between collective outrage, reactive action, and leadership. The other cases in this series are: “India’s Daughter: The Rape that Galvanized a Nation” and “Malala Yousafzai: A Young Female Activist”; the teaching pack also includes an instructor’s note, discussion guides, an annotated bibliography, and a select glossary of terms.