Faculty

Sarah McMahon
Sarah McMahon
Assistant Professor
Associate Director, Center on Violence Against Women and Children
PhD, Rutgers
Dr. McMahon's research interests include violence against women and social work education.
848-932-4393, ext. 24393
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Bio:

Sarah McMahon is an Assistant Professor of Social Work (Ph.D., Rutgers University, 2005).  Her interests include the etiology, prevention, and measurement of violence against women and children. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. McMahon's research has explored the role of gender, subculture membership, sense of community, and individual perceptions and behaviors related to violence.  She is currently pursuing research on the effectiveness of community-level prevention efforts such as bystander intervention that are aimed at changing the social norms that support relationship abuse and sexual violence. Her work includes an emphasis on developing culturally appropriate measurement tools and research methodologies. In addition to her role as Assistant Professor, Dr. McMahon serves as Associate Director of the Center on Violence Against Women & Children at the School of Social Work where she oversees community-based research projects and the development of a specialized Master's certificate.

Courses Taught:

  • Methods in Social Work Research I
  • Methods in Social Work Research II
  • Family Violence/ Violence & Abuse in Adulthood
  • Women's Issues
  • Social Welfare & Policies II- Violence Against Women & Children
  • Public Child Welfare Intensive Weekend Program- Family Violence & Research Methods

Selected Recent Publications:

McMahon, S. & Farmer, G.L. (in press). Measuring subtle rape myths: An updated version of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale.  Social Work Research.

McMahon, S., Postmus, J., & Koenick, R.A. (in press). Engaging Bystanders: A primary prevention approach to sexual violence on campus. Journal of College Student Development.

McMahon, S., & Farmer, G.L. (2009). The bystander approach: Strengths-based sexual assault prevention with at-risk groups. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment. 19 (8), 1042- 1065.

McMahon, S. (2009). Hearing from student-athlete peer educators: A qualitative study of the impact of participation in an interpersonal violence peer education group. Academic Athletic Journal, 20 (1), 1 -28.

McMahon, S. (2007). Understanding community specific rape myths: Exploring student-athlete culture. Affilia, 22 (4), 357-370.

Farmer, G. L. & McMahon, S. (2005). Scale for the identification of acquaintance rape attitudes: Reliability and factorial invariance. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 11(3/4), 213 - 235.