Education Commons^™

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring The Educational Experiences Of Lgbtq+ Students, Ashley R. Stroud

Doctoral Dissertations

Research shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Queer and questioning plus (LGBTQ+) youth are at high risk for bullying and violent victimization, poor mental health, alcohol and other drug use, and poor academic performance. According to the 2019 GLSEN school climate survey, LGBTQ+ students reported hearing hostile remarks, experiencing harassment and assault, feeling unsafe because of personal characteristics, and being subjected to discriminatory policies. The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to understand how secondary students experience school environments and how their teachers can be supportive and affirming of their diverse identities. The following research questions guided this study: 1) …

#Blackqueerlivesmatter: Understanding The Lived Experiences Of Black Gay Male Leaders In Los Angeles, Christopher Jackson

Education (PhD) Dissertations

The Black community and the gay community have historically experienced marginalization from society, public and private institutions, federal government agencies, and law enforcement. Black gay male leadership is not a conversation within leadership academia. This phenomenological study focuses on understanding the lived experiences and leadership among Black gay men who are leaders in Los Angeles County. This study found that the lived experiences such as oppression, mentorship, community involvement, and advocacy have influenced their leadership development and leadership identity. This study identifies how Black gay men define leadership, based off their lived experiences. It also identifies themes of leadership development …

We’Ve Come A Long Way (Baby)! Or Have We? Evolving Intellectual Freedom Issues In The Us And Florida, L. Bryan Cooper, A.D. Beman-Cavallaro

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper analyzes a shifting landscape of intellectual freedom (IF) in and outside Florida for children, adolescents, teens and adults. National ideals stand in tension with local and state developments, as new threats are visible in historical, legal, and technological context. Examples include doctrinal shifts, legislative bills, electronic surveillance and recent attempts to censor books, classroom texts, and reading lists.

Privacy rights for minors in Florida are increasingly unstable. New assertions of parental rights are part of a larger conservative animus. Proponents of IF can identify a lessening of ideals and standards that began after doctrinal fruition in the 1960s …

Groundhogs, Tanya Mason Smith

Dissertations

This dissertation contains a collection of stories that explore loss and grief, illness and disability, parent and child relationships, and marriage and its expectations within the gay community and the south.

The First-Year University Experience For Sexual Minority Students: A Grounded Theory Exploration, Edward Alessi, Beth Sapiro, Sarilee Kahn, Shelley L. Craig

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This exploratory study used grounded theory to understand the role of minority stress on the first-year experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning emerging adults attending a university in the Northeastern part of the United States. Twenty-one lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning sophomores participated in focus groups asking them to reflect on their first year of university. Themes suggest that participants tackle multiple challenges simultaneously: the developmental task of increased independence and stressors specific to lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning adults such as encountering stigma. Furthermore, participants manifested resilience in response to minority stress. Participants joined campus …

Queer History Of The United States: A Syllabus, Jordan Ostrum

History Summer Fellows

This project is a proposed syllabus of a college level history course dealing with queer and trans experiences in the 20^th century. The course utilizes the Ursinus inquiry based approach to learning, focusing on the core questions “How can we understand the world?” and “How should we live together?” Supplementary materials, such as the course proposal, are meant to encourage the Ursinus College History Department to offer the course in the future.

Queers In The Hands Of A Loving God: God Image, Strength Of Faith, And Campus Climate In Predicting Self-Stigma, Sage Liam Willis

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

There is a complex relationship between the intersections of religious or spiritual faith and sexuality when it comes to sexual minorities. Sexual minorities’ sexualities have historically been stigmatized within the many of the faith traditions that sexual minorities may have grown up in. Further, college/university is a time when intersecting identities are often explored. In order to investigate the relationship between sexual minority students’ internal working models of God (God image benevolence and God image acceptance) and internalized self-stigma as a function of both strength of faith and campus climate, I recruited 68 sexual minority students and recent students from …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Three Interventions Designed To Enhance Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Sexual Minorities, Jamye Banks

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Sexual minority students’ encounters with discrimination and harassment are increasing in school settings. Per the research, the discrimination and harassment they experience partly stems from teachers’ negative attitudes toward sexual minorities and a lack of understanding of the needs of these individuals, which can negatively impact students’ psychological well-being and create an unwelcoming environment (Dessel, 2010; Mudrey & Medina-Adams, 2006; Riggs, Rosenthal, & Smith-Bonahue, 2011). Teachers are responsible for ensuring a safe environment for students that promotes mental and physical health (Larrabee & Morehead, 20’10; Mudrey & Medina-Adams, 2006; Riggs et al., 2011). Therefore, it’s vital to determine ways to …

An Examination Of School Harassment For Middle School Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Questioning Students, Kimberly Megan Indelicato

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Most schools are not safe environments for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students or for individuals who are questioning their sexual orientation. Harassment and victimization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning (LGBQ) students is pervasive. The harassment and victimization result in these students having higher rates of absenteeism and lower academic achievements than their peers. To date, most research has focused on primarily high school lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. Very few studies have included students questioning their sexual orientation. This quantitative descriptive study utilized an anonymous survey to gather information about middle school LGBQ students’ experiences with harassment. The study …

How Counselors Are Trained To Work With Bisexual Clients In Cacrep-Accredited Programs, Laurie Anne Bonjo

Theses and Dissertations in Early Childhood Education

In spite of recent progress toward addressing the need for cultural competence with lesbian and gay-identified clients, bisexual-identified clients continue to be marginalized in the principles, theories, and methods of studying sexuality as well as in the training provided by counselor educators. A descriptive content analysis was conducted to determine what is currently taught about bisexuality and bisexual-identified clients in CACREP-accredited counseling programs. Instructors teaching multicultural counseling in CACREP-accredited programs were asked to provide syllabi, as well as information on textbooks and supplemental materials. Combining constructionism with queer theory and elements of post-positivism, I explore the magnitude to which bisexuality …

Addressing Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Bullying: A Mindfulness-Based Intervention Manual, Melanie L. Ernould

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The following dissertation offers an intervention to combat the negative effects that bullying has
on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth in high school. The literature review demonstrates the need for such an intervention through examples of the damaging effects that such bullying has on LGB youth. These incidents of bullying are far too common in American schools, and the effects far reaching, as the media has been saturated with stories of “gay teen suicides” in recent years. While affirmative interventions are currently the status quo for work with LGB populations, it can be argued that these are limited. In …

Legal Consciousness And Lgbt Research: The Importance Of Law In The Everyday Lives Of Lgbt Individuals, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The law occupies a prominent place in the everyday lives of LGBT individuals, and the continuing regulation and policing of sexuality and gender weighs heavily on many people who identify as LGBT. Despite remarkable progress in the area of LGBT civil rights, LGBT individuals in the United States still lack formal equality and are denied many of the protections that are afforded other historically disadvantaged groups. These legal disabilities represent an ongoing source of minority stress and can produce a correspondingly high degree of “legal consciousness” within the LGBT community. Given the importance of law in LGBT lives, it is …

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender And Questioning Students: A Qualitative Study Of The Perceived Effects Of Bullying In Schools, Brandy Kelly Richeson

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Bullying research frequently focuses on incidence and prevalence of bullying in schools, often failing to provide detailed accounts of the experiences and perceived impact of harassment and abuse (Poteat et al., 2009) on victimized lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Further, these studies tend to have small samples of racial and ethnic participants and they fail to address victimization in individuals with multiple oppressed identities (D'Augelli et al., 2002; Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network [GLSEN], 2009). Utilizing a consensual qualitative research (CQR) design, the purpose of this study was to examine the victimization experiences and coping mechanisms utilized …

Evaluating The Effects Of A Safe Space Training On Professional School Counselors And School Counseling Trainees, Rebekah Byrd

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

While professional and social advocacy is an important component of school counselor training, there is little information about the awareness, skills, or knowledge needed to effectively meet the academic, career, and social needs of LGBTQ students (Smith & Chen-Hayes, 2004). The purpose of this study was to evaluate and examine the impact of Safe Space training on Professional School Counselors (PSCs) and School Counseling Trainees (SCTs). In this experimental design, a sample of 74 PSCs and SCTs from three universities and one school district participated in 1 of 7 Safe Space trainings. The Safe Space training, developed by The Gay, …

Gay And Lesbian Life At Colby 1969-1974, Rachel Baron, Qainat Khan

WGSS Selected Student Work

The history of a gay and lesbian student community at Colby seems to point to the difficulty of visibility. For students who were able to find others like themselves, their group of lesbian and gay friends had to remain underground. For students who were grappling with their newly found, socially stigmatized sexuality, the experience was isolating if they did not know where to find others like themselves. This paper seeks to address the social forces that kept sexually variant students from expressing their sexual identities openly on campus. Part of this difficulty is attributable to the compulsory heterosexuality assumed by …

A Lesson On Homophobia And Teasing, Eva Goldfarb

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Homophobia and gay-related teasing are already present among young children. This lesson introduces the term “prejudice” and places the concept of homophobia within the context of bullying and teasing with which 8–11-year-olds are already familiar. The lesson builds empathy as children think about and discuss how they have felt when they have been teased or called a name and how they think people in gay or lesbian families would feel. The lesson celebrates the lives of gay and lesbian people as it celebrates diversity among all people and families. Children are encouraged to think about the diversity within their own …

We’Re Coming Out! – “Home” And “Away” Identities In The Field Of International Education: An Emotional Construction And Negotiation Of The Self, Paul St. John Frisoli

Master's Capstone Projects

Once upon a time, there was a young man from the country of Federation. In this era of postmodernism, Paul St. John Frisoli held fragmented and multiple identities that were at times complimentary and contradictory. He believed that whether he was angry, happy, frustrated, or satisfied that emotions offered clues to these identities. One day, Paul left for the islands of Banga Sharini where he worked on the WEZAP radio project that was funded by the Federation Agency for International Development (FAID). During his stay, he developed new Consultant and Foreign Identity selves while leaving his “home” identities of the …