Community attitudes towards sexual violence

Community attitudes and beliefs embrace gender equality and condemn all forms of gendered violence without exception.

Increase in community attitudes that reject sexual violence.

The mean score on the Sexual Violence Scale (SVS).

An increase in the mean score on the Sexual Violence Scale (SVS) would indicate an increase in community attitudes that reject sexual violence.

The items that make up the SVS are also included in the Attitudes towards Violence against Women Scale (AVAWS). The AVAWS captures the overall community towards violence against women and the SVS should be interpreted as one component of the AVAWS.

2021

The mean score on the rejection of Sexual Violence Scale (SVS).

Data element: Mean score—attitudes
Data source: NCAS
Data source type: Survey

NA

Data element: NA
Data source: NA
Data source type: NA

This measure is expressed as a mean score.

Numerator only.

For each reference period, nationally, by: 

• state and territory
• gender 
• age 
• sexuality
• remoteness.

The NCAS sample consists of Australians aged 16 years or over.
The 2021 SVS consists entirely of 2021 AVAWS items that ask about attitudes towards sexual violence, including all items in the 2021 Sexual Assault Scale (SAS) and 2021 Sexual Harassment Scale (SHS). Respondents were asked whether they agree or disagree with attitudes that support violence on a 4-point scale: “Strongly agree”, “Somewhat agree”, “Somewhat disagree”, “Strongly disagree”.
The SVS includes 24 items: four new items regarding intersectional forms of sexual violence, street harassment, and technology-facilitated sexual abuse attitudes; 14 items from the 2017 Violence – sexual assault scale; and six other items from the 2017 NCAS. The 2021 SVS has no subscales. 
Higher scores on the SVS indicate higher attitudinal rejection of sexual violence.

For some population groups, numbers may be too small to be reported on separately.  
The NCAS is unlikely to ever provide disaggregation by disability status alone. Disability status and age are related, and age and attitudes are related. When entered with age, disability status was not a predictor of attitudes. If the bivariate relationship between disability status and attitudes were to be reported, it would be misleading, given that in 2021, the effect was driven by age.
Where the RSE for numbers and estimates is between 25% and 50%, this will be indicated in the data visualisation and any accompanying data tables. Where the RSE is greater than 50%, the data will not be published.