Regulation of staff-student relationships has been discussed on and off for decades. However, it is rarely informed by any empirical evidence of what students feel would best support their learning.
It’s notable that the concept of “professional boundaries” – widely used in professions where practitioners work with adult clients or patients in occupations such as healthcare, therapy, or social work – is absent in discussion of higher education teaching and learning relationships.
Now that the Office for Students (OfS) is consulting on regulating universities’ in England’s handling of sexual violence and harassment, there’s an open question about whether staff-student relationships should be monitored, or prohibited entirely.
While a handful of universities in the UK do prohibit close personal relationships between staff and students, there has not been a general shift towards such a position, and the impact of such policies is as yet unclear.
