Understanding the School Climate for North Carolinas Sexual Minority Youth Robin Moore meredith college Taylor Hudgins meredith college Amie Hess Phd Meredith college School climate research ID: 302138
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Slide1
Hostile Hallways?
Understanding the School Climate for North Carolina’s Sexual Minority Youth
Robin Moore |
meredith
college
Taylor Hudgins |
meredith
college
Amie Hess,
Phd
| Meredith
collegeSlide2
School climate research
Schools are hostile places for many sexual minority youth, including both verbal and physical harassment (see e.g. GLSEN, 2011)
Elevated suicide risk (see e.g. Marshall et al., 2011)
Greater risk of leaving school and/or poor school performance (see e.g. Toomey and Russell, 2013)
The presence of a gay-straight alliance (GSA) student club can mitigate these negative effects (Russell et al., 2009; Heck,
Flentje
, and Cochran, 2011; and Toomey and Russell, 2013).
GSAs are not evenly distributed (
Fetner
and Kush, 2008) nor are all “safe spaces” created evenly (
Fetner
et al. 2012). Slide3
Current project
Survey of NC High Schools (summer/fall 2014)
R
andom sample (stratified by region) of 196 schools
Eastern NC, Western NC, Central NC, Wake County, Mecklenburg County
Response rate of 31% (n=61)
Focus group (2) with stakeholders (summer 2014)
Focus groups (2) with NC youth GSA members (winter 2014-15)
Burbs high (in Wake County, but rural exurb)
City high (in downtown Raleigh)Slide4
ARE
nc
schools providing protections?
Bullying policies in
nc
schools
NC school violence protection act
Became
active in 2009-2010 school year
Defines bullying and harassing behavior
Includes gender identity and sexual orientation
Required by all public high schools (and any school receiving
public
funding)Slide5
Do LGBT teens have GSAs in NC?Slide6
Where are the GSAs?Slide7
Do
lgbt
teens have support from schools?Slide8
But, presence of Gsa
alone is not enough
Burbs teens
Harassment: Verbal and physical
Stories
of being pushed in hallways and other acts of open hostility
Hostility: Perceive their school environment as hostile
Described permission process to bring a same-sex date to dance as the “lesbian consent form.”
Teacher wrote an anti-LGBT op-ed for newspaper. “Still have to sit in his class.” No censure from administration or school board.
Safe space: “This is my family”See themselves and GSA as
tolerated
City teens
Hostility: Verbal only
Frequent use of words like gay and fag in derogatory ways. But feel comfortable calling people out on language
V
ocabulary/Education/Advocacy
“I am a gender binary, pansexual, hetero-romantic”
Have planned activities with other community LGBT orgs (including a bowling night with other area GSAs)
See themselves and GSA as
accepted
:
Trans teen on the school dance court
We are a club like any other student organizationSlide9
Conclusions
Progress has been made in NC, but there is still a long way to go.
State-level policies and GSAs are important steps, but not enough to create climate of acceptance/normalization
Local actors
If school administrators and teachers are not aware of policies or supportive of policies, then they don’t matter in the lived experiences of sexual minority youth
.
Region matters
Some areas have other LGBT-community resources which increases effectiveness of GSA/other policies