Child sexual abuse in 20th century Spanish autobiographical literature: abuse perpetrated in the school environment

The purpose of this study is to identify the revelations of child sexual abuse (CSA) cases in 20th-century Spanish autobiographical literature, determine their prevalence and victimization settings, and focus the analysis on the nature of CSA in those cases that took place in the school environment. A sample of 338 works of 20th-century Spanish autobiographical literature was analyzed. After identifying revelations of CSA in 47 works, these cases were analyzed from the perspective of biographical research and content analysis. References to CSA were identified in 13.9% of the sample, with the school environment being the most frequent setting of the revealed abuses: in 63.8% of the identified cases. The content analysis of the references to abuses in school environments showed that the relevance of the topic in the analyzed works ranged from being almost anecdotal to being the central theme of the entire work. The information provided includes details about the perpetrators, the victims, the types of abuse, the process of victimization, and the consequences of the abuses for both the victims and perpetrators. In addition, it is evident that references to CSA in autobiographical literature appear, with only three exceptions, in books published after 1990.