Ethical Issues currently found in Education Research Paper

Ethical Issues currently found in Education - Research Paper Example Sexual misconduct in a school setting is a broad subject and basically defines unwelcome or unwanted sexual advances from teachers, lecturers, and administrators working in the school. In all educational institutions, the association between students and their teachers is central to the educational mission of the school’s administration. Various educational establishments have rules that stipulate that there should be no non-academic ties between students and teachers because they can affect the basic integrity of the academic relationship between students and teachers. Sexual relationships between students and teachers, even when they are consensual, tend to adversely affect both the student and teacher involved. The prohibition of sexual relationships in a school setting usually extends to include all people working within a school. For example, sexual relationships involving other workers in the school or between teachers are also prohibited. Moreover, the issue of sexual r elationships between teachers and students is what carries greater weight in public forums because it involves people who are empowered and people who are not empowered. There is a greater likelihood of teachers or lecturers taking advantage of their exalted positions within a school setting to procure sexual favors from less empowered students than the other way around. In addition, when there are sexual relationships between two teachers or other administration members, the relationships tends to have equal consequences for both parties- which is not the case for student-teacher sexual relationships. Many educational experts have stated that even when the student gives his or her consent to having a sexual relationship with the teacher involved, this is still a type of sexual harassment. This is because the relationship between the student and teachers can never be equal. Even if the student involved imagines that he or she is making an independent decision, this is just not the r eality. One of the reasons why many cases of sexual associations between teachers and students are not reported is because the student may not mention it to any adult. Usually, such stories are revealed when a student finds a reason to continue about the relationship. Educational institutions strive to protect their students from teachers who may threaten students with low marks or the possibility of failing examinations unless they provide sexual favors. Sexual relationships between students and teachers do not only affect the people involved in them. For example, if a teacher with a class of 50 students is having a relationship with one of his female students, the other students are likely to start resenting the female student in question because she may be the beneficiary of more favors than she is entitled to in an academic sense. The male students are particularly affected by this type of association because they tend to feel that there is nothing that they can do to be able to compete on the same level as the girls in the class; some of whom may choose to avail themselves to the teacher to get high marks. In the past, there were many societies in which sexual relationsh